Honda Cars India have discontinued the production of its premium hatchback, Honda Jazz at their Greater Noida assembly plant. Honda has cleared all the existing inventories at the dealers end too and dealers have also stopped taking any fresh bookings for the Jazz. The refreshed Jazz was launched just more than a year ago with a price slash of close to Rs. 1 lakh compared to the older version. The older version was not a very favorite model among the customers due to its premium pricing. however, it garnered quite a fan following after the price cut and has been selling better ever since. Seeing this, it comes as a surprise to us to see Honda obliterating the model from the Indian market now.
Honda says there are a couple of reasons why it had to go to this route. Firstly, the company wants to make space for the upcoming Honda Amaze models which it is putting a heavy bet on. The Amaze sedan has been developed keeping India specially in mind and the company cant afford to lose any market on that. Honda has shifted its focus recently to the volume-selling small car segment (Brio hatchback and Amaze sedan) to increase its strong foothold in India. secondly, Honda was making a loss on the latest Jazz models it was selling. Although, the price cut was announced to garner fresh demand, the localization of components was not achieved to that extent to make it even break-even at that price point. This led to high demand for the model but low turnover from the plant.
The Jazz fans shouldn’t be disappointed although. Honda has confirmed that it will be bringing in a new Jazz model later which will have higher levels of part localization. It will also get the 1.5 litre i-DTEC engine that will debut in India on the Amaze sedan. Expect the all new Jazz to be hit the Delhi Auto Expo in 2014 and going on sale in the market by the middle of 2014.
Honda also has new 2014 Honda City and 6 more cars lined up for India in coming 2 to 3 years time. With the launch of first diesel engined car Amaze in April 2013 in India, Honda India will enter the league of Diesel car makers in India who have taken huge share of sales because of increased demand for small diesel cars in India. It will be interesting to see how it will affect the overall market share of the majors like Maruti and Hyundai who have dominance on Indian car market. Stay tuned to Car Blog India for more updates.
via – ACI
