B2B - Nissan Evalia and Chevrolet Sail U-VA - Why have they started so poorly?

The festival season is the time of the year where manufacturers view the positive customer sentiment as a chance to launch new products.

[can't see the video above? Head over to Youtube]

During this year's festival season, we've had plenty of new launches. While the overall market environment is challenging, there were two launches that stood above the rest - the Mahindra Quanto and the Maruti Alto 800. Maruti managed over 60,000 bookings for the Alto 800 and has already converted a large portion of that into sales. The Quanto's future may be very insecure with the rush of mini SUVs lining up to take a shot at the Indian market in the coming years, but the journey has begun well, with over 12,000 bookings registered.

The two launches we thought would change the landscape, have started very slowly. While the Sail U-VA managed to clock only about 2,000 odd units since the launch, less than 500 Evalias have been put on Indian roads.

While we'd be stupid to call them failures (they are newborns and these early numbers may not mean anything), we ask if you see any commonalities in these two products that have influenced the reaction of the Indian car buyers?

Has India ignored their plain jane design, simple interior or the lack of novelty or newness?