The country’s largest passenger vehicle maker raced ahead of home grown automaker Mahindra & Mahindra in the fast-growing segment with sales of 42,620 units last month. Mahindra sold 36,205 units, while Hyundai Motor India was next at 32,991 units.
Fresh product interventions in the category, along with multiple powertrain options from gasoline to CNG and hybrids, enabled the company to draw in buyers on a fast clip, Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki, told ET.
“We had anticipated consumer preference for SUVs, early on. What we erred on was in our judgement of how fast this market would evolve. We took corrective measures introducing multiple products over the last one year and this helped us gain market share rapidly in the category,” Srivastava said.
In July, the company’s share in the SUV segment rose to 24.7% from a modest 8.5% in the first quarter of the last financial year, prior to the launch of the new models. The Fronx and the Jimny went on sale only at the start of this fiscal year. The Grand Vitara was launched in September 2022.Mahindra led cumulative sales in the segment between April and July – the first four months of this fiscal year – by 800-odd units, but Maruti Suzuki is confident of more than closing this gap this month itself. Srivastava said the company has more than 110,000 pending orders for its range of SUVs and will be able to extend the lead over rivals Mahindra and Hyundai in the remaining part of the fiscal year.Growing SUV sales also helped Maruti Suzuki increase its passenger vehicle market share to 43.3% last month from 41.8% in July 2022.