Maruti looks to regain market share in SUV segment with 4 new models

Cars will be across all price segments in a market where company's rivals have lead

Maruti Suzuki aims to increase its share in the SUV segment, the fastest growing in India’s car market, by launching four new brands in the next couple of years, said sources.

The company, which has around 43 per cent share of India’s passenger vehicle market, launched on Thursday a refurbished version of its popular compact SUV model Brezza. The price starts at Rs 7.99 lakh for the base variant and goes up to Rs 13.96 lakh for the top variant.

The Brezza will compete with Hyundai’s Venue, which got a facelift recently, Kia’s Sonet and Tata Nexon. “When the original Brezza was launched, mileage was the top identity. The new identity is feature and tech along with mileage,” said Shashank Srivastava, executive director sales at Maruti Suzuki.

Sources said the four new SUV brands Maruti plans will plug gaps in its portfolio and will give customers an option at every price point. The planned models include a mid-size SUV to rival the Hyundai Creta, the Baleno Cross, and the Jimny.

Maruti had a market share of nearly half to 67 percent in all other segments of the passenger vehicle (PV) industry in fiscal 2022 ended March 31. In SUVs, its share was just 12 per cent.

“We have only two models as against 47 SUV brands currently available in the Indian market. Starting with this vehicle, you will see a series of launches in the segment,” said Srivastava.

Analysts said product launches by rivals caused Maruti’s overall market share to in FY19-22. “Our analysis suggests that market shares in the PV) segment are very highly correlated with the product life cycles. MSIL benefits from its favorable product pipeline over FY14-19 with market share improvement of 9 bp (basis points) to 51 percent, benefitting from the launches of Celerio, Ciaz, S-Cross, Baleno, Brezza, Ignis, XL6 and Espresso," brokerage firm Motilal Oswal said in a note, referring to the company’s full name Maruti Suzuki India Limited.