Pour one out for the Mobilio. Honda’s entry-level MPV has joined the Jazz in the great parking lot in the sky.
When asked about the Mobilio’s disappearance on Honda Cars Philippines’s website, they released this statement:
We mainly considered the changes in market demand. By focusing on other growing segments, we can better cater to our customer needs.Truth be told, this move isn’t surprising. With Filipino preference shifting towards small 7-seater SUVs from MPVs, the Mobilio constantly found itself in the shadow of the similarly priced BR-V.
In 2017, the BR-V enjoyed 7,212 units to the Mobilio’s 3,009. From that point on, the BR-V always outsold the Mobilio: 4,719 versus 2,190 (2018), 4,003 versus 513 (2019), and 2,041 versus 169 (2020).
The Mobilio was first launched in the Philippine market in 2015. At one point, it became Honda’s second best-selling nameplate. It was subsequently refreshed in 2018.
It’s currently unknown whether Honda will actually launch a second-generation Mobilio. They did, however, show off the N7X Concept which previews the second-generation BR-V. That new 7-seater small SUV is expected to arrive by next year.
Farewell, Mobilio. I always thought the Mobilio, particularly in facelifted form, to be superior than the BR-V, but everyone just loves crossovers, or crossover-looking vehicles lately. Still, Honda needs to hurry with the BR-V successor. Those sales figures are worrying.
ReplyDeleteHonda PH just made a wrongful decision by removing the Mobilio in the local lineup. They should have retained it once the next gen model arrives. Very sad news though.
ReplyDeleteThere's no word whether Honda will actually make a second-generation Mobilio, or whether they'll go with just the BR-V from this point onward.
Deleteintroducing two similar looking - and almost similarly-priced - vehicles was very wrong and ill-advised - with both eating into the other's market. and the declining sales figures for both models in the last 4 years demonstrate that both models were not marketed well.
ReplyDeleteEver since Honda brought in the BRV, I feel that it completely stole the Mobilio's thunder, I think they should bring in a more affordable BR-V variant which can maybe compensate for the discontinuing of the MPV version...a manual variant? :P Pakistan and India both had manual BR-V's......
ReplyDeleteThe big question is if many people will buy it. Likely, it won't be the case anymore. Most new car buyers really want an automatic for convenience. MT is still big in South Asia (India, Pakistan), but they aren't big even in Thailand or Indonesia.
Deletehmm true, since Honda imports all of its cars now, it doesn't make sense business wise to bring in a variant that won't sell as well. Unless you're Toyota....:P
DeleteThere's another model in my mind which Honda PH can maybe bring as replacement, which by the way is already a longshot and that's the WR-V from India. Since the Jazz is probably saying goodbye soon, the WR-V can hit two birds with one stone, a bigger and taller hatchback than the Brio plus it rides higher (which would be really appealing to many here), but it's also smaller than the BR-V despite being in the same segment, so people can see the difference between the two, and they would less likely be compared with each other :)
I guess the issue would be importing it from India, but Suzuki did it with the S-Presso...
but the car's currently only for South America and India :/
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