The Hindu Business Line : Alto drives Maruti sales

According to market watchers, while the sales of Maruti 800 have been declining year-on-year since April this year, Alto sales have been racing ahead.

In fact, Alto has by far overtaken the Maruti 800 as the largest selling car in the Maruti portfolio. While in July, the Alto sold 11,111 units, only 9,554 units of the Maruti 800 were sold in the month — a decline of 41.7 per cent as compared to July 2003. Interestingly, only 3,317 units of the Alto were sold in July last year.

On the whole, the combined sales of Maruti's entry level models (the Alto and Maruti 800) grew by 5 per cent in June to 20,665 units.

Maruti dealers point out that the launch of the stripped down, standard variant of the Alto in April this year, has cannibalised sales of the Maruti 800 and is gradually replacing the Maruti 800 as the company's entry level car.

"With the standard variant of the Alto priced at only Rs 2.3 lakh, the price difference between the two cars has reduced substantially. The launch of the standard variant provided a substantial fillip to Alto sales", says a Delhi dealer.

Incidentally, the Euro-II compliant AC version of the Maruti 800 is currently priced at Rs 2.27 lakh, and the non-AC variant priced at Rs 2.07 lakh.

While 38,997 units of the Alto were sold in the April-July period, 41,428 units of the Maruti 800 were sold in the period — a drop of 27.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Alto currently comes in three variants — the standard non-airconditioned version, Alto LX (Rs 2.65 lakh), and Alto LXi (Rs 2.85 lakh). The company is producing Alto VXi (the 1.1 litre variant) but only for the export markets.

Meanwhile, Maruti's total sales have risen by 3.9 per cent to 43,419 units in July, as compared to 41,781 units sold in July 2003. The decline of 41.7 per cent seen in the sales of the Maruti 800 in July was balanced by the 67 per cent jump seen in the sale of Maruti's compact car models (consisting of the Alto, Zen and WagonR).

Sales of the company's midsize cars - Baleno and Esteem — grew by 84.6 per cent in the month to 2,335 units.