Rural market growth is lifeline for small cars, believes Maruti Suzuki

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Maruti Suzuki has always been known as the king of small cars with its range of hatchbacks and sedans on offer in the Indian market. The number one carmaker in the Indian passenger vehicle market has witnessed a steep decline in small car sales over the last couple of years, as consumers swayed towards SUVs and crossovers from hatchbacks and sedans, keeping in sync with the global trend. This trend has impacted not just Maruti Suzuki but all the car brands. Despite the shrunk market share, small car sales have witnessed a slight revival in the recent past owing to the growth in the rural market, believes Maruti Suzuki.

The company has said that a revival in the rural market has helped arrest the decline in sales of entry-level small cars, which saw a 10 per cent growth in retail sales in October this year. Maruti Suzuki launched the fourth generation version of its sub-compact sedan Dzire on Monday, priced between ₹6.79 lakh and ₹10.14 lakh (ex-showroom). The automaker is bullish on enhancing its market share in the sedans category despite the rapid growth of SUVs and crossovers.

Maruti Suzuki to continue presence in all segments

During the launch of the new generation Dzire sedan, Maruti Suzuki India's MD and CEO Hisashi Takeuchi said that the carmaker would continue to cater to all segments to preserve its high market share in the domestic market. "The compact sedan segment is very reliable. So from a business point of view, it is very good and secondly in order to retain decent market share, we have to have a presence in each of the customer segments," PTI quoted Takeuchi saying.

Maruti Suzuki currently has more than 40 per cent market share in the Indian passenger vehicle segment. The sedan segment in India currently accounts for eight per cent of the overall passenger vehicle volumes. For Maruti Suzuki, sedans account for 10 per cent of the overall sales volumes. In the sedan category, it has more than 50 per cent market share with the models like Dzire and Ciaz. In the entry-level sub-compact sedan segment - which also has Honda Amaze and Hyundai Aura, among others, Maruti Suzuki held a market share of more than 61 per cent in the April-September period of this financial year.

Rural market growth helped Maruti arrest small car sales slump

Maruti Suzuki India's Senior Executive Officer of Marketing and Sales, Partho Banerjee said lately the rural markets have been performing better than the urban centres. On the entry-level hatchback segment, which has been bleeding most due to the rise of SUVs, he noted that the carmaker was able to arrest the decline in sales between the first and second quarters of the current fiscal. "In the month of October, we saw good traction with a growth of around 10 per cent in retail sales in the entry hatch segment," he said, adding that the recovery in the rural market has played a significant role in the revival of the entry small car segment. In terms of retail sales, Maruti Suzuki posted its best-ever performance in October with 2.02 lakh units.

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