Honda becomes the third largest car maker in India

Riding high on the success of its City sedan, Honda Cars India outsold Mahindra & Mahindra in the month of July, jumping to the third spot in the country's car market. The Japanese car maker sold 15,709 vehicles in the month, a thousand more than Mahindra & Mahindra delivered.

"It (No. 3) is not our target and one month sale is no indicator of ranking. Having said that, we are happy with our own sales, we should strive to consistently doing well with our models and achieve our volumes plans," said, Jnaneswar Sen, senior VP, sales & marketing, Honda Cars India.

The bumper response to its sub-compact sedan 'Amaze' and mid-size sedan 'City,' has helped Honda Cars India to sneak into the top five car manufacturer slot in Fiscal 2014. And now, its latest offering Mobilio, with over 10,000 bookings within a week, may compel the company to consider holding a second shift at its Tapukura plant.

"We wanted to see the response to the Mobilio and so far, it has exceeded our expectation. If things stay this way, then we may have to start planning about second shift in Tapukara, plant soon," added Sen.

Despite of Honda's lead in past two month, Mahindra still leads the race by 11,924 units. As in cumulative sales for the first four months of the fiscal, their sales trajectories have been different year to date, while Mahindra has posted a sales decline of 11 percent to 67,721 units, the Japanese auto maker showed a 40 percent growth to 43,326 units.

While Mahindra's UV's including Bolero, Scorpio and XUV continued to do well, poor show by the manufacturer's compact SUV Quanto, MUV Xylo and its Verito sedan continue to weigh on overall performance.

Source: ET