Honda Civic Edges Past Rivals In Sales For Month of April

After along gap, Japanese automaker Honda decided to renew the Civic model line-up in India and the initial response to the car has been very good. The initial dispatch numbers for the month of the launch of the premium sedan were very good, and peaked at 2291 units in March, but the recent numbers have come down drastically and the dispatch number for April remains only at 369 units. This is not that bad a news for the company as even with the drastic fall in dispatch numbers the recently launched Civic sedan has managed to ace the established rivals in the market like Skoda Octavia, Toyota Corolla and Hyundai Elantra.

The company had in the past already declared that the bookings for the initial 40 days for the Civic sedan had skyrocketed to 2,400 units. A lot of this initial enthusiasm was also expected as the Civic was an all new launch in the market. The company did bring the sedan to India after a large gap of 7 years and the eighth-generation Civic’s initial numbers did not disappoint the company. Now that the initial dust around the launch of the car has settled down, one can expect much more stable sales numbers from the company, kind of similar to what one witnessed in April. For the month of April, the dispatch numbers for Skoda Octavia, Toyota Corolla, and Hyundai Elantra remained at 227, 177, and 85 units respectively. This still puts Civic at the top of the sales charts.

To let you know, the bookings for the all-new Honda Civic began on 14 February, 2019. Honda has priced the all-new Civic slightly higher than the rivals in the Indian market. Prices for Honda Civic begin at Rs 17.69 lakh for the base model and the top model comes in at Rs. 22.29 lakh, ex-showroom. Taking a look at the competition we find that Hyundai Elantra’s base model begins at Rs. 13.81 lakhs, Skoda offers the base model of its Octavia at Rs. 15.99 lakhs whereas Toyota has priced its Corolla Altis at Rs. 15.7 lakhs.

With an option for petrol and diesel engines, the petrol motor in Honda’s new executive sedan is a 1.8-litre 4-cylinder unit rated for Bhp and 174 Nm. While the diesel unit is a 1.6-litre mill rated for 118 Bhp and 300 Nm. While the petrol models come with a CVT automatic gearbox, the diesel models make do with a manual transmission only. Honda has also said that depending on the customer demand, a diesel automatic version could be launched as well. Honda has introduced the Civic for a primarily urban customer segment that wanted to transition beyond Honda City and was looking for a more premium option.