Having ceded ground past three years to ‘original’ SUV big boys Mahindra and Mahindra and Tata Motors, India’s biggest carmaker by unit sales has lately harnessed increasing consumer preference for this vehicle body-type to wrest back market share. And the mint-fresh Brezza and Vitara are at the vanguard of that initiative.
Maruti Suzuki doubled its volume share in the SUV category to 17.4% last month, up from 8.8% in February 2022. Rivals Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra did manage to expand volumes in the segment in the period under review, but saw a decline of 2.3% and 0.7% in market share, respectively. Korean auto major Hyundai – now fourth in the pecking order after Maruti Suzuki – saw market share in the SUV segment slide 3.3% in February.
To be sure, four out of every ten passenger vehicles now sold in India are SUVs.
Two new SUV models – Jimny and Fronx should help Maruti be in contention for volume leadership in the SUV segment in FY24. The company expects to drive overall market share to 45% in FY24, from about 41% in the ongoing financial year.
“Our share in the non-SUV segment of the Indian PV market is above 65%. To achieve our medium term target of 50% market share, we have to increase our footprint in the SUV space as well,” Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director (marketing and sales), Maruti Suzuki, told ET. “We were earlier constrained by lack of models in the SUV space, but with Grand Vitara and the newly unveiled Fronx and Jimny, we should gain significant volumes next financial year.”
SUVs currently account for about 12% of sales at Maruti Suzuki. The company has pending orders for nearly 100,000 units of the Brezza and the Grand Vitara. The Jimny and the Fronx – prices of which are yet to be announced – have garnered between an additional 35,000 bookings between them.Sales of sports utility vehicles expanded 38% in the local market in the first 10 months of the fiscal year. With this, SUVs now comprise 43% of total sales of passenger vehicles in the Indian market.
Leadership Stakes
Srivastava added: “Our MD has given us the target to be number one in the SUV space, and that has become the war cry for our marketing and sales force.”
Maruti Suzuki has seen its share in local passenger vehicle sales shrink below the halfway mark due to a weak presence in the SUV category, and the company is now working overtime to remedy the situation. The company has planned a slew of products for launch in the segment to regain market share of 50% mid-term, Maruti Suzuki Managing Director Hisashi Takeuchi said in a recent interaction with ET.
“The increasing demand for SUVs in India has been a major factor behind the growing penetration of Maruti SUVs in the market. Consumers are increasingly opting for SUVs as they offer more space, better performance, and enhanced safety features,” said Ravi Bhatia, President at JATO Dynamics. “Moreover, Maruti SUVs are available at competitive prices, thus making them an attractive option for budget-conscious customers.”
At present, Tata Motors dominates the SUV space with aggressive product and powertrain interventions over the last couple of years. In fact, more than two-thirds of the sales in the passenger vehicle segment for Tata Motors came from SUVs in CY2022.
Tata Nexon emerged as the best-selling model in the SUV space with sales of about 1.28 lakh units last year. Tata Punch, positioned at the budget end of the spectrum and priced about a lakh lower than Maruti Suzuki Brezza and Hyundai Venue, also helped bolster volumes.
Overall, the SUV segment is set to remain the largest in the passenger vehicle space in the local market mid-term, as per industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), expanding at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 10% in the next few years.
