Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) will strengthen its product offering in the fast growing sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment to increase market share in the passenger vehicle segment, a top official said.
Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, said, “We are currently behind others in SUV offerings.
“We have only two models out of 48 SUVs in the country and we need to strengthen it.”
In the non-SUV segment, MSIL has a market share of 67%. The company’s entry-level SUV Brezza has a market share of 22%. In the B-segment, which includes SUVs and MPVs, it has a market share of 20%. MSIL plans to gradually increase the market share of the entire SUV portfolio to 50%.
“Going forward, more focus will be on the SUV segment with more new models as new segments are emerging along with the increase in sales volume. For example, the lifestyle SUV market is emerging. We have also identified several SUV sub-segments.
He also said that the country’s largest carmaker will offer a hybrid vehicle in two variants – mild and strong. The cars will be produced at Toyota Kirloskar Motor’s Bidadi plant in Karnataka. It will be unveiled during the third week of July and will start mass production by August.
“The upcoming hybrid SUV will be a game changer. We can discontinue the S-Cross model at a later stage. However, we will continue to make smaller cars.”
Unveiling the new Brezza, he said that it had received over 46,000 bookings in nine days and currently had a waiting period of four and a half months. Efforts were being made to increase production to reduce waiting times.
Asked about chip shortage, he said the situation has improved with the plants operating at around 93-95% capacity.