Honda’s flagship entry into the compact segment with the Honda Amaze has been quite a start. The Japanese auto maker who is already reeling under heavy damage caused to its Japan R&D centre when earthquake hit the country and disruptive vendor network when floods hit the Indonesian region is making all efforts to recover the losses. The Amaze is based on the Honda’s hatchback, Brio but like the Maruti Suzuki Swift and Swift Dzire where the Dzire looks like a slap-on-boot job to the Swift, the Amaze isn’t so at all. Honda has launched the Amaze in Thailand recently soon next year the car will be making inroads to India too followed by Indonesia.
Now, South African website BD Live has reported that Honda might be bringing the Amaze sedan to that market as well in the next year. Toyota already has its presence in those markets in the compact hatch and sedan space with the Etios and the Etios Liva Launch in South Africa. Honda is perhaps planning its product strategy on similar lines in the African country. Honda recently launched the Brio in South Africa earlier this month. Assembled in India and exported, the Brio is powered by a 1.2 litre petrol engine and is mated to a 5 speed manual gearbox and automatic gearbox.
The Brio currently competes with rivals like the Hyundai i10 (again assembled in India), Toyota Liva and Kia Picanto. The South African Amaze will probably feature the same 1.2 litre i-VTEC engine that makes about 90 PS of power. Honda has already shipped a batch of 390 Amaze cars to South Africa. It has plans to roll out 1600 units till March 2013 for the market. Other nearby counties the company is studying for market potential is Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritius and Seychelles. In South Africa, the Amaze will mainly rival the Toyota Etios, the Tata Manza and Volkswagen Polo sedan.
Expanding the potential markets for Amaze will help Honda capture more markets with little to no additional costs on developing any country specific cars again and again for different geographies. We will keep an eye on the developments and will keep you posted, stay tuned.
via – BD Live
