Tata Motors today said it got a total of 203,000 bookings for the Nano, far lower than market expectations, considering the hype associated with “the cheapest car in the world”.
Dealers and sources monitoring the bookings had anticipated that the numbers could hit over 800,000.
The bookings are more than double the number of committed allotments for the first batch of cars.
The company has got nearly Rs 2,500 crore by way of fully-paid bookings for the car. Another Rs 18.30 crore was collected through sale of forms. About 610,000 forms were sold at various booking centres over a period of 25 days starting April 1, the company said in a media release.
“Considering the hype, we expected better numbers. The bookings are less than the initial capacity of the Gujarat plant, which is around 250,000 a year. I don’t think they will make a dent into other car manufacturers’ market share at all,” said a senior executive of a leading car company.
An ICICI Bank source said the market response for the Nano was way below expectations. The bank booked around 12,000 vehicles. Of these, 7,000 were booked via the company’s branches and the rest through websites.
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“Our total ground bookings were eight-10 times less than expected. We had more than 30,000 enquiries on our website. However, only 5,000 people booked it there,” said a senior ICICI official.
“The response has been poor primarily due to limited availability of the car. People have so many options these days and they don't want to lock their money until they see their car,” said another executive associated with the process.
Deliveries of the first batch of 100,000 units of the car will commence from July and will extend to the last quarter of 2010, even as the company is looking to ramp up production.
The names of the applicants who have been allotted the car in the first list will be announced before June 25.
According to details provided by the company, 70 per cent bookings were made through loan finance, while the rest paid direct cash.
In addition, more than half the bookings were for the top-end version, LX. Around 30 per cent were for the mid-level CX model and the balance 20 per cent were for the entry level model, Standard.
Tata Motors will also announce the allotment schedule for those applicants who express interest in retaining their bookings even if they are not allotted the car in the first lot.
"The retainees will earn an interest on their booking amount, effective from that date. The booking amounts of unsuccessful applicants who have not chosen to retain their bookings will be refunded at the same time," said a company statement. The bookings made no impact on sales of Maruti Suzuki, which saw its sales rise by 9 per cent in this period.