India 1st Half 2015: Maruti, Hyundai and Honda impress

Hyundai cracked the Indian code with the Elite i20.

* See the Top 15 best-selling brands and Top 60 models by clicking on the title *

The Indian market is back on the up in 2015 at +5% over the First Half of the year to 1.321.367 registrations to dealers. Even though it is already ultra-dominant, Maruti – the Indian subsidiary of Suzuki – manages to outpace the market at +9% to 623.000 units, as does Hyundai up 8% to 224.000 sales. Snipping at the heads of Mahindra (-8%), Honda gains an outstanding 15% to 102.400 units and 7.7%. In 5th place, local manufacturer Tata is up an impressive 23%, however the launch of the Bolt/Zest couple has disappointed so far as we’ll detail further below. Toyota and Volkswagen both gain 19% and while Datsun is up 38%, its on a small base as the brand just launched at the same time last year and at 10.831 sales it only accounts for 0.8% of the Indian market.

The Maruti Alto is headed towards 11 consecutive years in the Indian pole position.

In the models ranking, the Maruti Alto is quietly headed towards an 11th consecutive year in pole position even though it hasn’t ranked #1 every month so far in 2015 (#2 in June) with stable sales at 138.800 units. The Maruti DZire (+8%) and Swift (+4%) are catching up but remain at a fair distance. The main change atop the Indian sales charts comes from Hyundai: the Korean manufacturer cracked a difficult segment with the Elite i20, up 3-fold on the old model to 5th place and 66.217 sales. The Maruti Celerio at #11 and Toyota Innova at #14, both up 12%, also make themselves noticed.

The Maruti Ciaz is the most popular all-new nameplate in 2015 so far.

A very dynamic market, India welcomes no less than 8 all-new nameplates inside the H1 2015 Top 60, but most are disappointments. The Maruti Ciaz is the best ranked at #15 with 29.000 sales and has now found its cruising rhythm at a very satisfying level, allowing Maruti into a new segment. The Tata Zest (#28) and Bolt (#34), if they somewhat enable Tata to catch up on lost time, have failed to convince and the Bolt even fell to a paltry 447 sales in June. Similarly, the Honda Mobilio and Datsun GO+ have not managed to replicate their Indonesian success in India: they rank #31 and #39. The Renault Lodgy on the contrary is opening new sales potential for the French manufacturer: it was Renault’s best-seller in April and May. Finally, the Honda Jazz (#55) and Hyundai Creta (#57) were introduced in June and already feature in the Top 60 for H1 2015, a good sign for the remainder of the year.

Previous post: India June 2015: Maruti DZire leads, Hyundai Creta lands

Q1 2015 update: India 1st Quarter 2015: Maruti and Hyundai dominate market up 2%

FY 2015 update: India Full Year 2014: Datsun GO underwhelms in market back up

One year ago: India June 2014: Maruti Wagon R up to 2nd place

Full H1 2015 Top 15 brands and Top 60 models vs. Full H1 2014 figures below.