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#1
Indian automotive market is very unique compared to other similar or larger sized markets. The uniqueness being in the market share of topmost players. There is no other example like India where top 2 or topmost player has so much market share. Now this may have some inherent advantages but frankly it frustrates me like anything.The reason being the biased purchase decision we as customers are forced into making due to this imbalance in the market.We Indians are traditionally conservative, mostly by nature of our values and economic status. Thus our car purchase decisions are no different especially also when it involves a lifetime savings being spent by some folks.
Now by virtue of the above mentioned we Indians are bound to lookout for every opportunity of savings, be it looking for value for money products or savings on after sales or repairs etc.
For the matter of fact few players entered our auto market fairly early.Few had clear vision regarding the need of Indian customers while others just could not gauge that well.Also India being a dynamic, diverse & developing nation, the job becomes more critical.Hence some succeeded, some did not, some are trying & some have given up. The huge imbalance in market share is somewhat due to above factors & vice versa.
Now we being customers should not care much about car companies making profit, minting money or running in loss. All we should care about is getting the max value for money spent & that what we exactly do, & rightly so.But some manufacturers due to multiple factors have just read our pulse too well & thus have been able to deeply divert our focus to a.s.s/reliability/resale value. On flip side diverting us from our main aim - of getting value for money products. These manufacturer's also are able to do so due to their advantageous position in market.
Don't get me wrong I don't say a.s.s/resale etc are not important. These things also contribute to value of product, only that I dare to question one thing - to what extent??
To put things in prospective I beg to throw in a market example.
Kindly note I don't mean to be biased towards any manufacturer in particular but rather only divert attention towards my point of view.
For eg: Manufacturer "M. S" having market share of 47% has a large selling compact sedan priced 8 lakh for top end model.
Also, Manufacturer "F" having market share 4% has a slow selling compact sedan priced 7 lakh for top end model.
Clearly Former car will get better resale/a.s.s. We can count reliability at par for the sake of this comparison.
Now due to car getting better a.s.s & resale, naturally most buyers will tend to purchase the former. But certain key factors get ignored here meanwhile. The latter was a better equipped car, had much better engine, overall quality. Also latter was priced whopping 1 lakh less. Thus despite being an inferior product otherwise, the former manufacturer was able to charge a whopping premium over the latter and also sells in huge numbers just by virtue of said to be better a.s.s & resale value.
But did anyone think on below lines -
1.Isnt it that the former has already charged a lakh extra, so count resale value accordingly depreciating from 8 lakh instead of 7 for the latter?
2.No one has tried a.s.s of latter, only word to mouth publicity, dats it?
3.What came first egg or chicken? how will a.s.s or resale of latter improve , if we keep on buying inferior products from former that too at a premium?
4.Isnt it that former should be actually selling their product at a lower price since they sell in huge numbers, so margins can be lowered?
5.Bigger picture - Don't u think market share imbalance will harm us in long term due to this bias in public buying.
6.On a more practical aspect.. The former product should had been priced 6.5lakh or so(being inferior product than latter), so does the 1.5lakh you paid extra worth to offset the better a.s.s & resale value u expect of the product..? For this consider u bought the latter for 8 lakh( or why not just add 1.5 lakh to actual resale value u get while selling latter)?
Overall, I hope I was able to make my point.
Comments invited. I am a very new member here, so request members to be a bit considerate on mistakes.
Continue revving folks.
Now by virtue of the above mentioned we Indians are bound to lookout for every opportunity of savings, be it looking for value for money products or savings on after sales or repairs etc.
For the matter of fact few players entered our auto market fairly early.Few had clear vision regarding the need of Indian customers while others just could not gauge that well.Also India being a dynamic, diverse & developing nation, the job becomes more critical.Hence some succeeded, some did not, some are trying & some have given up. The huge imbalance in market share is somewhat due to above factors & vice versa.
Now we being customers should not care much about car companies making profit, minting money or running in loss. All we should care about is getting the max value for money spent & that what we exactly do, & rightly so.But some manufacturers due to multiple factors have just read our pulse too well & thus have been able to deeply divert our focus to a.s.s/reliability/resale value. On flip side diverting us from our main aim - of getting value for money products. These manufacturer's also are able to do so due to their advantageous position in market.
Don't get me wrong I don't say a.s.s/resale etc are not important. These things also contribute to value of product, only that I dare to question one thing - to what extent??
To put things in prospective I beg to throw in a market example.
Kindly note I don't mean to be biased towards any manufacturer in particular but rather only divert attention towards my point of view.
For eg: Manufacturer "M. S" having market share of 47% has a large selling compact sedan priced 8 lakh for top end model.
Also, Manufacturer "F" having market share 4% has a slow selling compact sedan priced 7 lakh for top end model.
Clearly Former car will get better resale/a.s.s. We can count reliability at par for the sake of this comparison.
Now due to car getting better a.s.s & resale, naturally most buyers will tend to purchase the former. But certain key factors get ignored here meanwhile. The latter was a better equipped car, had much better engine, overall quality. Also latter was priced whopping 1 lakh less. Thus despite being an inferior product otherwise, the former manufacturer was able to charge a whopping premium over the latter and also sells in huge numbers just by virtue of said to be better a.s.s & resale value.
But did anyone think on below lines -
1.Isnt it that the former has already charged a lakh extra, so count resale value accordingly depreciating from 8 lakh instead of 7 for the latter?
2.No one has tried a.s.s of latter, only word to mouth publicity, dats it?
3.What came first egg or chicken? how will a.s.s or resale of latter improve , if we keep on buying inferior products from former that too at a premium?
4.Isnt it that former should be actually selling their product at a lower price since they sell in huge numbers, so margins can be lowered?
5.Bigger picture - Don't u think market share imbalance will harm us in long term due to this bias in public buying.
6.On a more practical aspect.. The former product should had been priced 6.5lakh or so(being inferior product than latter), so does the 1.5lakh you paid extra worth to offset the better a.s.s & resale value u expect of the product..? For this consider u bought the latter for 8 lakh( or why not just add 1.5 lakh to actual resale value u get while selling latter)?
Overall, I hope I was able to make my point.
Comments invited. I am a very new member here, so request members to be a bit considerate on mistakes.
Continue revving folks.
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