Tatas look to redefine compact sedan market with Tigor
A decade after it pioneered the compact sedan with the Indigo CS, a concept that quickly caught the fancy of car buyers and manufacturers, Tata Motors Ltd is looking to redefine the segment.
With aggressive pricing starting at ₹4.7 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi), Tata Motors hopes to attract buyers of both compact cars and sedans with the Tigor and have a bigger play in the 80,000-100,000 units per month compact car (hatchbacks and compact sedans) market.
“The Tigor creates a segment of its own as it’s not a typical three-box sedan with a boot added to the hatch,” said Guenter Butschek, chief executive and managing director of Tata Motors, on the sidelines of the Tigor’s launch.
He conceded that Tata Motors has “learnt its pricing lessons” and has priced its new-generation models—the Bolt, Hexa and now the Tigor—attractively.
Based on the Tiago platform (Tata’s compact car), the Tigor undercuts prices of models in the compact as well as sedan segments including Maruti Suzuki’s Swift, Dzire and Baleno and Hyundai’s i20. The entry-level variant of the Tigor is ₹65,000 cheaper than the Swift Dzire, ₹20,000 cheaper than the Swift, and ₹50,000 cheaper than the Baleno.
Analysts said attractive pricing and its launch in a segment that hasn’t seen new launches in
ENTRYLEVEL VARIANT OF THE TIGOR (AT ₹4.7 L) IS ₹65,000 CHEAPER THAN THE SWIFT DZIRE, ₹20,000 CHEAPER
THAN THE SWIFT, AND ₹50,000 CHEAPER
THAN THE BALENO
the recent past, could bode well for the Tigor. The car is the second new model in less than three months from the Mumbai-based firm as it seeks to recoup market share in India’s competitive car market.
An ageing line-up and the launch of attractively priced premium hatchbacks have taken the sheen off the compact sedan market, which had been advancing at a healthy clip till three years ago, said Puneet Gupta, associate vice-president at IHS Markit, a sales, forecasting and market research firm.
With changing buyer preferences, the compact sedan market is now growing at half the rate of the broader car market, he added. Car sales in India grew 9% to 2.55 lakh units in February over a year ago, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Currently, the 35,000-odd units a month market is led by the Swift Dzire, which commands half the share in the segment.
“We expect new launches this year — the Tigor and the new Swift Dzire, expected in the latter part of the year — to rekindle growth in the segment,” Gupta said.