Automakers rebrand cars to steer clear of ‘taxi’ tag

:When your dream car arrives at your doorstep as a cab, chances are you may not be particularly interested in having it as your personal vehicle.

To address this perception problem, South Korean car major Hyundai will sell its newly launched Xcent only to families, while continuing to sell the older version to commercial owners.

“We will sell the old models to commercial fleet operators under a new badge called the Prime. So there will be Eon Prime, i10 Prime, Xcent Prime, etc. They will be different from the models we have launched recently,” said Rakesh Srivastava, director, marketing and sales, Hyundai Motor India Ltd.

While the company is looking to sell 5,000 units of the new Xcent per month, it plans to sell 2,500-3,000 units of Xcent Prime to fleet owners. The company sold over 2.5 lakh units of the last edition of Xcent launched in 2014, out of which 7% went to fleet owners.

“It’s a complete family sedan with premium features and affordable price,” YK Koo, CEO of HMIL said at the launch of the new Xcent.

Besides Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki also sells its older Swift DZire to cab owners as DZire Tour, while the sub-four metre sedan is sold only as a family vehicle. The DZire Tour, which is cheaper than the LDI variant of the standard model by almost ₹6,000, accounts for over 16% of DZire’s total sales, industry sources said.

According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) data, Maruti Suzuki sold over 83,000 cars across various models to fleet operators in the last fiscal.

Toyota, too, rebadged its product Etios as Etios Platinum to distinguish between a cab and family car. A Toyota dealer said its MPV Innova Chrysta is “available for sale only as a family purpose vehicle and the company is not selling it to fleet operators”.

It all began with Tata Indica, the first mass-market car from Tata Motors, which became taxi owners’ first choice, thanks to its good space and affordability. As quintessential “kaali-peeli” taxi models such as Hindustan Motors Ambassador and Premier Padmini were phased out, the trend crept on to the likes of Toyota Etios, Maruti Suzuki WagonR, Celerio, Eeco, Swift DZire, and Hyundai Eon, i10 and Xcent in recent times.

The cars had two positives for the cab owners: low-cost maintenance and high mileage.

According to ratings agency ICRA: “Original equipment manufacturers have realised the market potential and have dedicated their sales team to cater to fleet operators. Considering strong demand and increasing penetration of such players in smaller towns, the Indian taxi market is poised for robust double-digit growth over next two to three years.

“In 2015-2016, fleet sales (including cab aggregators) accounted for 9% of Indian passenger vehicle sales, which is expected to reach 15%-17% by 2019-20,” the agency said.