Growth in rural market helps arrest decline in small car sales: Maruti Suzuki

New Delhi: A revival in the rural market has helped in arresting the decline in sales of entry-level small cars, which saw a 10 per cent growth in retail sales in October, top company officials of Maruti Suzuki India said on Monday.

The company, which launched all-new version of its compact sedan Dzire priced between Rs 6.79 lakh and Rs 10.14 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), is bullish on enhancing its share in the sedans category despite the fast growth of SUVs and asserted that it would continue to cater to all segments to preserve its high market share in the domestic market.

While the SUV segment has been growing, other segments are also important to the company to maintain high market share, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) MD and CEO Hisashi Takeuchi told reporters here.

"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," Takeuchi noted.

MSI currently has over 40 per cent market share (wholesales) in the overall domestic passenger vehicle segment. In the sedan segment, it has more than 50 per cent market share.

In the entry compact-sedan segment - which also has Honda Amaze and Hyundai Aura, among others - MSI has a market share of over 61 per cent in the April-September period of this fiscal year.

The sedan segment currently accounts for 8 per cent of the overall passenger vehicle volumes. In the case of MSI, sedans account for 10 per cent of the overall sales volumes.

MSI Senior Executive Officer (Marketing and Sales) Partho Banerjee said the company's endeavour is to serve all customer segments.

When asked about the market situation, Banerjee said rural markets were performing better than the urban centres.

On the entry-level hatchback segment, he noted that the company 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, Banerjee MSI posted its best-ever performance in October with 2.02 lakh units.

On the all-new Dzire, Takeuchi said the company has invested around Rs 1,000 crore in the development of the model.

He said Dzire has been a global success for the automaker with around 30 lakh units sold so far across markets.

The overall sedan market might be shrinking for the industry but for MSI, it has been good so far, he noted.

"In the 2023-24 fiscal Dzire sales increased and in October also we had a huge month in terms of sales of the model... so we are confident that the new version will give us an opportunity for growth and maybe for the growth of the overall segment as well," Takeuchi said.

When asked if the company would also look at introducing new models in the sedan segment, he stated: "If there is a demand from the customers we can do it. But right now, the demand is skewed towards SUVs and we need more of such models in the market." He further said: "Our production capacity is not unlimited. There is a limit to develop and introduce products in the market. So right now more SUV models need to be added..similarly existing product lines need to be renewed, so that we are doing." However, Takeuchi said under the current market situation, the company does not see the need to drive in an all-new sedan model.

Banerjee said last fiscal, MSI had sold 1.65 lakh units of the outgoing Dzire and 75,000 Dzire units in the current fiscal.

"We feel there is a huge play in the sedan segment. As a market leader, we need to be in all the segments and provide all fuel options to the buyers," he stated.

MSI also plans to export the model to various markets like Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, he stated.

The company also stated that its EV launch plans remain on track.

MSI plans to have six new electric vehicles by the fiscal year 2030-31.

The automaker expects its EV sales to account for 15 per cent; hybrid models 25 per cent and internal combustion engine products to account for the rest of its overall sales by 2030.