Skoda Auto India is going to discontinue the production of  the Skoda Fabia for the Indian market. While the car isn’t going to be phased out suddenly, it is expected to be in production until August 31, 2013, when the company will finish assembling the remaining Fabia kits. Nearly 2,200 units will be then available, until the stock is cleared (expected by year-end).

The Czech car company, Skoda has taken this step because of the drastically falling sales figures and high rising production costs. Fabia’s annual sales figures have reached their five-year low of 3,343 units for FY13 (financial year 2012-2013); it sold only 115 units in April 2013. Sources from the industry have indicated that Skoda was incurring a loss of at least Rs 1,50,000 per unit for the past few months.

It was launched in 2008 and after nearly six years, close to 45,000 units of the Fabia have been sold till now. Its current price has come to be 40% lower than what it was when it was introduced in India. Still it wasn’t able to sell more cars because of the pricing strategy which positioned it above the segment leader – the Maruti Suzuki Swift.

No replacement is going to be seen for the Fabia, as Skoda will try to concentrate its resources and money on strengthening its models in the Sedan segment. A new Octavia is said to be on its way for the Indian market, which is expected to be launched during the festive season.

In the last 12 months, a few other cars have had to leave the Indian shore because of similar reasons. They are:

• Chevrolet
  • U-VA
  • Aveo
  • Optra

  *The Aveo and the U-VA have come to be replaced with the new SAIL and SAIL U-VA.

• Honda Cars India
  • Civic
  • Jazz

  *The Civic and the Jazz are said to be temporarily discontinued. Though we’ll have to wait to see when they will be reintroduced.

Later this year, Maruti Suzuki India is also expected to announce the stopping of the production of the Zen Estilo and the A-Star, while making way for a new model to replace the vacuum.

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