French car-maker Renault's MPV for India, the Lodgy, was launched in the beginning of 2015. After initial excitement, the sales of the Lodgy diminished and the company is currently selling just about 400 units of it every month in the county. In an effort to turn around sales, Renault India reportedly plans to focus on targeting institutional and fleet sales for the Lodgy.
"We have got approvals to sell this vehicle to government organisations. We will also start selling it soon to the fleet owners as well," Sumit Sawhney, CEO and managing director of Renault India, told ETAuto. "We expect this number to go up this month in whole sale while retail is expected to be in tune with 1,000 units," he added.
The company reportedly plans to bring out an AMT transmission-equipped variant of the MPV soon. The unit is expected to be the six-speed Easy-R AMT that debuted with the new Duster SUV in March.
Honda Cars India had earlier announced its plans to enter the fleet market aggressively with its slow-selling MPV, the Mobilio. Honda sold only 374 unit of the Mobilio in April 2016. The numbers for March, February and January were 610, 226 and 441, respectively. The MPV segment has seen a downturn in sales after the advent of compact SUVs in India.
Interestingly, the bestselling MPV in the country, Toyota Innova, received a major upgrade this month and the new avatar has been launched with an increase in price. Despite slow sales of the MPV and the rise in price, the Innova Crysta has already received over 18,000 bookings so far since its launch on May 13.
