Not decided yet on introducing a smaller car than Brio: Honda

Honda Cars India has not decided yet on introducing a smaller car than Brio, a senior company official said.

"As of now we do not have clear conclusion to enter or not to enter. However, we are definitely studying the market including a compact SUV," Honda Sr VP sales and marketing, Jnaneswar Sen said at the launch of the multi- purpose vehicle 'Mobilio'.

He said in Honda's global portfolio, Brio was the smallest car and now the R&D teams of India and Japan were studying the small car market.

In India, Brio has not able to taste success and was able to garner only two per cent market share, but the company does not have any immediate plans to push the model.

Asked about a timeline for a conclusive decision on a smaller and cheaper car than Brio, Sen remained noncommittal.

He said City, Amaze and Mobilio models were focused at increasing the sales volume and the company had received tremendous response from the new City and Amaze models.

"So far, the response for Mobilio is very encouraging and has already received 10,000 bookings.

In Indonesia, the model was launched in January and has garnered 23 per cent market share," he said, adding, these models fuelled the company to register 40 per cent growth in sales in April-July 14' period of the current fiscal.

Honda aims to sell 3 lakh units by 2017 from 1.34 lakh units achieved in 2013-14.

Speaking about other models, the company said it was not looking at a diesel version of CRV and the Accord has been stopped presently but would be relaunched with a new generation version in the next fiscal, while Jazz would also come in a new avatar with more competitive pricing early next year.