IAs of February 2020, the India Exposition Center and Mart in Greater Noida are packed for Auto Expo. There are continuous reports of viral outbreak in China. The news has become so serious that the decision to ‘ban’ the delegates who have recently traveled from China has been taken at the last minute. This is despite two Chinese exhibitors – Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation, SAIC, owner of the MG brand and Great Wall Motors, which were expected to launch in India in mid-2020 – taking up costly floor space.
But we still have no clue what caused the outbreak. Some media persons are wearing expensive N95 masks, others carry precious bottles of hospital-grade hand sanitizer in their backpacks. And there’s this overwhelming sense of foreshadowing that something big is potentially going to happen.
Of course, you don’t need me to remind you of what happened next. But here’s a brief recap. Covid in eastern Ladakh and a border skirmish paid off for Great Wall Motors’ plans in India. Auto Expo 2020 will go down in history as the last major automotive show before the closure of the world.
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Since that time, the automotive industry in India and the world has gone through a lot of news. The industry first decided to shut down and cancel all orders from Semiconductors and then found out that everyone wants a new car and they can’t make them. Even though semiconductor supply issues and automotive production have stagnated after the pandemic, demand is still through the roof. The average wait time for popular models like the Kia Carence is over six months, with the likes of select variants of the Mahindra Scorpio being over a year. At the same time the entire two wheeler and three wheeler industry is rapidly moving towards electric vehicles and now major Indian companies like Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj and TVS are also players in the electric game.
So you would think that the Auto Expo, which is making a comeback in 2023 from January 11 to 18 at the same India Exposition Center, will be a huge success. but according to this story The Times of IndiaThe expo has seen a decrease in demand for participants. In fact, the report highlights that most of the two-wheeler makers have decided to avoid the flagship event.
And the story isn’t much different for car makers either. The entire Skoda auto-Volkswagen group like Honda Cars, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and even Mahindra is avoiding the show. While Maruti-Suzuki, Hyundai-Kia and Tata Motors are participating, along with some newcomers such as BYD Motors of China, auto expo’s mass market-performing carmakers and new models, such as Mahindra Surprisingly,
Rajesh Menon, general secretary of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), would not like to get into the specifics of such reports, but he expects two-and-a-half months to go before the show and that the industry associations are still holding discussions with their member-partners to ensure voting. working together.
But the opinion of car makers is completely different from this. The head of public relations at a large manufacturer categorically stated that the ROI (return on investment) at the expo is ‘not worth it’ from the point of view of promotions. “I’d love to spend that kind of money on doing a big event of my own in a nice place where people don’t have to drive 40 kilometers on a cold January morning.”
Two-wheeler makers are even more pernicious: “It’s a car show, and we get lost in the media chaos,” says the communications head of a large two-wheeler maker.
Other manufacturers, who did not wish to be named, recently commented on the state of automotive media in India that the site has been growing year by year and how Auto Expo has become more about quantity rather than quality.
Carmakers have a lot to show at such a big event, but a combination of factors, including Greater Noida’s inconvenience for both exhibitors and media, cold January weather and dwindling promotional returns, ensured It has been that the Auto Expo is in 2023. In the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The return after the reconstruction of Pragati Maidan in central Delhi could help the expo. There has been a gradual indifference to major auto shows by car makers across the world as the industry undergoes a fundamental transformation and global geopolitics is in its crosshairs.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Choubey)