Grand Vitara, Brezza waiting periods shorten: Maruti Suzuki’s journey to becoming biggest SUV maker

In 2022, Maruti Suzuki had announced its plans to go after the SUV market and become the number one player by the end of FY 2023-2024. Despite the Brezzabeing the top-selling SUV in the compact SUV segment, the idea behind growing their SUV portfolio was that it would help MSIL achieve its larger goal of capturing 50 percent of overall passenger vehicle market share.The automaker has since achieved its goal of becoming the numero uno SUV maker in record time. From its 10.5 percent overall SUV market share in 2022, Maruti Suzuki has now more than doubled it to 22 percent. In terms of sales, SUVs now command over 49 percent of MSIL demand on average. Demand for MSIL SUVs peaked in November 2023, accounting for 53.3 percent of its sales. With the industry expected to clock 4.11 million unit sales this calendar year, SUVs will account for 2 million of them and compact SUVs are expected to cross 1 million. With MSIL’s majority stake in these segments, that’s a lot of SUVs that the automaker will sell. So how did they achieve this in record time?

• Appeal to all kinds of SUV buyers:
From having just the Brezza, Maruti Suzuki has grown its SUV portfolio exponentially since September 2022. Ranging from the Grand Vitara hybrid, Fronx, Jimny 4×4, to the Invicto hybrid, MSIL now has an offering across all major SUV sub-segments. The proof is in the pudding according to Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, who disclosed, “The Brezza is doing roughly 14,000 to 15,000 units per month and the Grand Vitara is doing about 11,000 to 12,000 units per month. Additionally, the Fronx is averaging 13,500 units per month and the Jimny is expected to do 4,000 to 5,000 units this month. If you look at our overall numbers, it will be in the 45,000 or so per month sort of figure, which is giving us our 22.5% market share in the SUV segment.”
The only low volume seller among the new Maruti Suzuki SUVs, is the Invicto hybrid and petrol-only, mainly due to constricted supply from JV partner Toyota Kirloskar. MSIL currently acquires only 400 to 500 units of the Invicto from Toyota and at the current rate, it has a waiting period of 11 months.

• Ease in supply chain, best-ever demand:
As mentioned before, 2023 has been a stellar year for PV sales, set to cross the four million mark for the first time ever. Moreover, for Maruti Suzuki it has been a year of ‘the best-ever’ months. According to Srivastava, December would be no different with expected wholesale of about 2,85,000 cars and a much higher retail. “At the beginning of the year, there was a large number of pending bookings in the industry. Estimates are almost one million, and after July, the Semiconductor issue got sorted out and production could increase. The pending booking therefore came down and at the moment, there would be less than 5 lakh pending bookings in the industry. The stock level also went up because we could now produce more vehicles. The increase in the wholesale numbers led to an increase in overall stock.” Srivastava added.
• Lower waiting periods will help cross finish line:
With ease in supply chain issues and increase in demand for Maruti Suzuki SUVs, the automaker is now able to cater to customers more quickly as waiting periods for the models have come significantly down. According to numbers shared by Srivastava, the Grand Vitara currently has a waiting of 2.5 months which was about 5 months earlier. With pending bookings of about 13,000 units, the Brezza now has a one-month wait which was close to 4.5 months earlier. It is the same for the Fronx which was earlier 3.5 months. For the Jimny 4×4, there is no waiting at the moment and the Invicto retains its 11 month waiting period for reasons mentioned earlier.

Still a long road for 50 percent market share:
While MSIL certainly achieved its goal to become number one SUV maker in 2023, the larger ambition of acquiring 50 percent overall market share has still eluded the carmaker. Maruti Suzuki currently holds 43.2 percent market share instead and while SUV share has more than doubled, it is the shrinking size of the hatchback segment that has held the carmaker back. “The first-time buyers in India still contribute 45-47 percent of overall sales. The affordability factor has resulted in a dip in this segment. We still have a lot of first-time buyers, and they are 65 percent of the population below 35 years of age. Personal transportation will be required, but personal transportation at this lower end of the market requires that the income level at this segment of people also should increase, which comes from economic growth. There are four big reasons for the price increase, one is the regulatory stringency which has affected the small car the most. Second, is the trend towards more features to be given with customers wanting more features even in basic cars. Third, material costs have gone up drastically in the last three years. 75-77 percent of the OEMs’ cost is the material cost. Road tax and insurance rates have also gone up.” Srivastava explained.

Apart from the 22.5 percent market share in SUVs, Maruti Suzuki now has 70 percent share in hatchbacks, 55 percent share in entire-level sedans, 50 percent share in MPVs and close to 94 percent share in vans.