Even though it posted flat growth (+0.33%), the entry level hatchback stays ahead of its sedan sibling in a year that saw sales impacted by a number of factors.
17 Apr 2019 | 8559 Views | By Mayank Dhingra
The Maruti Suzuki Alto remains the top-selling passenger vehicle in India, while the Dzire, a whole two segments above comes in a close second. While the Alto, the popular entry-level hatchback sold a total of 259,401 units, its bigger sibling the Dzire sold 253,859 units. A marginal difference of 5,542 ...
This is an Autocar Pro Plus article. Subscribe to continue reading.
The Maruti Suzuki Alto remains the top-selling passenger vehicle in India, while the Dzire, a whole two segments above comes in a close second. While the Alto, the popular entry-level hatchback sold a total of 259,401 units, its bigger sibling the Dzire sold 253,859 units. A marginal difference of 5,542 units that made the Alto the No. 1 car in India once again.
The Indian passenger vehicle (PV) market has had to witness some tough times in the last fiscal, given the negative buyer sentiment due to rising fuel prices, the liquidity crunch and also the growing impact of shared mobility on vehicle purchase decisions in urban India. But even as the going got tough, some of the tough models got going and kept the OEM production lines humming.
Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest car manufacturer and the longstanding market leader, saw seven of its models have a stranglehold in the Top 10 best-sellers' list as they do each month. Therefore, it not surprising that the carmaker has an overwhelming 51 percent market share, an increment of 1 percentage point over FY2018.
As in FY2018, the first five spots are all Maruti cars. The Maruti Alto (259,401 units), Dzire (253,859), Swift (223,924), Baleno (212,330) and Vitara Brezza (157,880) together sold 1,107,394 units, which account for a massive 64 percent of the company’s overall sales of 1,729,826 units (FY2018: 1,643,467 / +5.25%) in FY2019. However, look closely at the comparative numbers (see sales table below) and you'll find that the year-on-year growth for the Alto (+0.33%) is absolutely flat and the Dzire's is in single digits (+5.71%).
As it does every month, Hyundai Motor India takes 30 percent of the Top 10 list with its Grand i10, Elite i20 and another best-seller, the Creta SUV.
The Hyundai Elite i20 (140,225) is the No. 6 position, up 3 percent YoY. It is followed by the Grand i10 (126,041) at No. 7; this hatchback is down one rank on FY2018 and its sales are also down by 16.60 percent. The popular Creta SUV has been the Korean carmaker's strongest performer. With sales of 124,300 units, the Creta clocked 16 percent YoY growth and improving one rank from FY2018 to No. 8. These three models contributed to almost 72 percent of Hyundai’s overall sales of 545,243 units in the fiscal (FY2018: 545,243 / +1.68%), and formed 11.5 percent of the total PV sales in the year, which stood at 3,377,436 units (FY2018: 3,288,581 / +2.70%).
The Maruti Wagon R and Celerio, drive in at No. 9 and No. 10 respectively. Including the Wagon R (119,649) and the Celerio (103,734), the seven Maruti Suzuki models cumulatively garnered volumes of 1,330,777 units and comprised 40 percent of the total PV numbers in the fiscal. To not let new safety regulations impact its growth trajectory, the company has been on aggressively upgrading its model line-up with more passive safety features, as well as has been bringing new models based on more rigid platforms to conform to occupant crash and pedestrian crash protection norms.
Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai really don't give any leeway for the competition. Will that change in FY2020 with a new mass-market challenger in the form of Kia Motors India, with a model selection that could play right from premium hatchback to compact SUV space? Clearly, things are set to turn more exciting in FY2020. Stay with us as we keep bringing you the very latest updates, and all the facts and stats on all wheels sold in India's humungous automotive market.
Also read: India's Best-Selling UVs in FY2019 | Gap between leader Vitara Brezza and rival Creta narrows