Honda Cars India begins despatching new Jazz to dealers

As a precursor to the launch of the new third-generation Jazz hatchback on July 8, Honda Cars India has commenced wholesales of the hatchback to dealerships across India from June.

Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president (Marketing & Sales), told Autocar Professional that it takes 10-11 days for the Jazz cars to be transported from its Tapukara plant in Rajasthan, where it is currently being manufactured, to far flung cities like Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu or Imphal in the North East.

So in a bid to make the new Jazz available in showrooms across the country, ready for customer viewing and tests, it is beefing up the car’s supply at dealerships to meet immediate demand following commercial rollout.

During the month of June, HCIL has sold 2336 units of the Jazz in wholesales to dealers and further cars will be despatched according to market demand.

At present, Honda Cars India has 240 dealers across India and each will stock 5-10 units of the Jazz, prior to its launch. Subsequently based on customer feedback to the car’s pricing, the carmaker will decide the future numbers and the need to step up production capacity of the Jazz.

Currently, the company produces all its cars on a single assembly line that lends it greater  flexibility to juggle the production schedules according to market demand.

Sen says that till the expansion at the Tapukara plant is completed by mid-2016, Honda does not necessarily have to cut the production of any other model to free capacity for the Jazz. “We can look at other options like working overtime in the short term or bringing about more efficiencies on the production line.”

During June, the Brio hatchback sold 933 units and the Mobilio 1043 units and seem to be the only likely contenders to face the axe in volumes if the gap between demand and  supply has to be met for the newest baby on the block.

While the Amaze, City and the Jazz are produced at the Tapukara facility, the Brio, Mobilio and the CR-V are made at the company’s older plant in Greater Noida.

The new City and the Amaze are the volume rakers for the company and sold 7,187 units and 6,834 respectively in June. While the City continues to have a waiting period of a month, the Amaze’s waiting period is around 2 weeks.

In June, Honda recorded monthly domestic sales of 18,380 units, up 12.65% (June 2014: 16,316). In the first quarter of 2015-16, it has sold a total of 44,447 units, marking a growth of 9% (April-June 2014: 40,718).

On the export front, it shipped a total of 350 models during June including the new Jazz to South Africa. These comprised 208 Citys, 10 Brios, 6 Amaze sedans, 71 Mobilios and 55 units of the Jazz. Till now, starting from February 2015, a total of 1,755 new Jazz hatchbacks have been shipped to overseas markets.

More from Honda: Company sells 18,380 cars in India in June, up 12.65% YoY