Fix in for Colt

Ask anyone at Mitsubishi and they'll tell you how well the importer is doing -- until talk turns to the VFACTS light-car segment.

For a company that's turning around its financial situation and is posting respectable numbers across the market segments in which it competes, Mitsubishi certainly faces a problem in the light-car segment. Its contender in that segment is the Colt, a car that has not really set the market alight since its introduction here in 2004.

At the recent launch of the new Challenger SUV, President of Mitsubishi Motors Australia Ltd (MMAL), Robert McEniry reconfirmed that the Colt would be upgraded for 2010. We can expect to see the new, improved model before the end of the second quarter. When it arrives, it has to turn around the fortunes of a car that is selling in numbers well short of sales figures for comparable rivals.

In year to date sales as at the end of November, the Colt has sold 1609 units around the country. That's a little over 200 units more than the more expensive Volkswagen Polo, which is in run-out as well. The Colt is being steadily outsold (3052 units) by the more expensive Honda City -- a sedan in a segment where the buyers traditionally favour hatchbacks.

Ahead of the City and working the way up the list are the Nissan Micra, Kia Rio, Ford Fiesta, Honda Jazz, Holden Barina, Suzuki Swift, Mazda2, Toyota Yaris and Hyundai Getz. With the exception of Fiesta and Jazz, none of those cars are especially modern or up to date, so there's no excuse for the aging Colt there.

The cars outsold in the light segment by the Colt include the Suzuki Alto, which has only been in the market for a couple of months and literally doubled the sales of the Mitsubishi in November.

You can't argue that price or mini-MPV looks work against the Mitsubishi, since the Colt undercuts the Toyota Yaris on price and its styling is not out of place in this segment. In New Zealand, the Colt has been a solid sales success -- and the Lancer small car has been the slow-mover. Our side of the Tasman, the situation's reversed.

"Colt's been a vehicle for us, which has been a bit of a sleeper -- in terms of that segment's been quite strong for some time," admits Lenore Fletcher, Mitsubishi's Head of Corporate Communications. "And Colt probably has not reached the heights of sales that we had expected."

In a booming market for light cars, the Colt's slower sales are possibly holding back Mitsubishi, as the importer's Vice President of Brand Management, Paul Unerkov explains.

"It's an entry model into the range," he told the Carsales Network. "Get people in to start there and then they [might] be a Lancer buyer, they might become an Outlander buyer or something like that."

That's a tactic that has helped companies like Toyota over literally decades, but the Colt is not holding up its end of the bargain, as Unerkov agreed when he said: "Colt's not taken off."

Despite the NZ parallel, in which the Colt sells quite well, Unerkov believes sales have stalled due to the current product itself, rather than the way it has been marketed by MMAL.

"We're really looking forward to [the upgraded model]," he said. "We can't get our hands on that quick enough. If you look at the growth point of view for us -- that's the big segment [and] we're not getting any value out of it."

By implication then, the upgraded Colt should significantly improve Mitsubishi's sales in the light-car segment. Lenore Fletcher is less sure of that. It's her view that MMAL has to find a way to "cut through" with the new Colt and emblazon it on the public psyche. Fletcher implies that MMAL has not done enough to promote the Colt in Australia -- and that's something that will need to change.

"There'll be several things that we will look at," she told the Carsales Network. "Certainly the marketing area of the vehicle [is one]. For instance, the feedback we're getting from people who've actually bought the vehicle and are living with the vehicle is really, really positive.

"I guess one of these things we have to do is make sure we get some cut-through and make sure that people are aware of the vehicle. That's probably one of the things we'll look at, because people just don't know the Colt as well as they do other cars."

Beyond the question of recognition, Fletcher believes the Colt is not making up the numbers because the light-car segment is such a tooth-and-nail environment -- one in which price is everything.

"One of the things that's obvious is that it's a very price-competitive segment, particularly at that end of the market," she explained.

"Obviously, people are looking for a lot of specifications and they're looking for a lot of features in cars of that ilk. That's one thing that we're very, very good at; putting cars out there with a lot of features and benefits.

"That's an area that we'll also be concentrating on, as is part of our brand identikit, if you like. We'll certainly be looking at marketing, we'll certainly be looking at the vehicle itself -- in terms of how people see it and what they want from it."

But what if they actually want something more like the RVR crossover -- the Dualis competitor that MMAL will bring here around the same time as the revised Colt?

Mitsubishi has an entirely new Colt due in a couple of years. "That'll be a global car," says Paul Unerkov, meaning that there won't be any exclusively European or Japanese Colts, as is the case at the present.

Unerkov feels that the compact SUV, which appears unlikely to be sold here using the name RVR, is a worthy entry in a largely untapped market niche. In other words, MMAL seems confident it can do better with this model than Nissan has achieved with the Dualis to date (1883 units sold this year so far). And again, if MMAL sells more of the crossover, that will be conquesting sales from the Colt too, most likely.

So let's ask the question: If you had a Dualis-sized vehicle -- or slightly smaller -- in the same dealer showroom as a Colt, which one would you prefer?

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