MG Motors are still seeing a strong interest in the Hector and are planning to resume bookings in the festive season along with increasing production.
While the Auto Industry has been struggling to generate sales volume, there has been no dearth of new entrants and products in the market. And surprisingly, they have been very well received too. The MG Hector received 28,000 bookings after its launch but had to close the bookings soon after as they were struggling with their production capacity. Kia Seltos on the other hand had already received 32,000 booking before its launch and sold 6,200 units in the first week itself.
Now however, MG Motors have said that they are planning to resume the bookings for the Hector from October during the festive season as they do not want to turn down their customers. In an interview with CarandBike, Rajeev Chaba, President & MD- MG Motor India said, “We cannot and don’t want to reopen the bookings till the time we have a clear idea of deliveries. So first we want to take care of our existing customers who have already booked and then we want to resume bookings. So my guess is within October we should reopen the bookings.”
MG Motors had also resorted to a temporary solution of adding prospective customers to a waiting list without taking bookings in an effort to not lose their customer base. He further added “There are lot of walk-in that’s been happening and is still happening as we speak and we have started adding them to our wait list without taking money. So whenever we would start, this wait list can be converted to bookings. So I am happy to say good problem to have that we have got 16,000 customers in our wait list now.”
MG Motors is taking all measures to ramp up the production in order to be able to deliver the cars sooner. In context of production, Chaba said, “So on a single shift basis we can do 3000 units and we are evaluating the possibility of a second shift which we can start from November. We are just looking at suppliers’ capacity, in fact I’ve been meeting suppliers as well. Then we’re also looking at some imports of the part and hiring of one more batch for the second shift.”
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However, while MG Motors is in a strong position with good number of bookings for the Hector even in the worst times of the Auto Industry in India, ramping up production is not turning out to be so easy. Chaba said, “Because of other factors and other players, the suppliers get impacted and if they are impacted, it impacts us indirectly. So I hope and I am confident that things will start improving for the industry. Probably we have seen the worst in August and from here onwards we start going up. So if the industry improves, it’s good for suppliers and good for us as well,”
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The biggest challenge currently for MG Motors is to keep the walk-in customers happy and to retain their customer base. Dealers will have to entertain them well inspite of not being able to take bookings as they do not want to turn down people walking into the showrooms. As of now, MG Motors have sold over 2,000 units of the Hector in India and are targeting to deliver 3000 units in September.
