Maruti aims for half a million in SUV sales

The company is banking on more-than-doubling the volumes in the space on the back of full-year availability of midsize SUV Grand Vitara, and soon-to-be launched compact SUVs Fronx and Jimny.

Four out of every ten passenger vehicles now sold in India are SUVs. Maruti Suzuki expects to drive overall market share to 45% in FY24, from about 41% in FY23 driven by demand for these new models this fiscal. Maruti Suzuki already has 194,000 pending orders for its range of SUVs, which also includes the Brezza.

“We should be able to gain the top slot in the SUV segment if supplies are not affected during the year. Our market share last quarter already stood at 17.5%. With full-year availability of the Grand Vitara, and two new products shortly slated for launch in the compact SUV segment, it is possible to increase our market share to 25% in this category,” Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki told ET,

As many as 1.9 million SUVs are projected to be sold in the ongoing financial year, which is an increase of around 19% over 1.67 million units sold in FY23. Maruti Suzuki is targeting combined sales of about 475,000 units of Fronx, Brezza, Jimny and Grand Vitara by the close of the fiscal year.

“The midsize SUV segment is now the largest accounting for about a fifth of the passenger vehicle market in India. The Grand Vitara has been received well and was among the top 10 models sold in the country last month”, said Srivastava.

Meanwhile, in the entry SUV segment – where the company is having a good run with the all new Brezza – it plans to expand its presence further with the Fronx and the Jimny. The Fronx will take on the likes of Hyundai Avenue, Kia Sonet and Tata Nexon.

Sales of midsize sports utility vehicles grew the fastest – by 41% to 872,002 units – in the last financial year. An additional 759,000 units were sold in the compact SUV segment, which went up by 31.2% over the previous fiscal.
With sales of 202,800 units Maruti Suzuki’s share in the overall category stood at 12.6% for the full fiscal year (FY23).

Maruti Suzuki has seen its share in local passenger vehicle sales shrink below the halfway mark over the last couple of years 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% in the mid-term, Maruti Suzuki Managing Director Hisashi Takeuchi said in a recent interaction with ET.

At present, homegrown auto majors Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra dominate 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 last fiscal.

Overall, the SUV segment is set to remain the largest in the passenger vehicle space in the local market in the 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.

As Srivastava said, “We expect the share of SUVs to continue to grow over the next 3-4 years to 50%. After which based on consumer trends, in other markets globally. we expect the segment to plateau.”