Maruti Suzuki’s Alto hatchback is poised to touch the three million cumulative sales mark by the end of this month.

Over the last 16 years of its existence, it grew to touch the one million sales mark in the first eight, stepped on the gas to get to the next million in half the time and thereon to the third lap in a little over three years.

Alto was launched to take over from the 800 which was the first Maruti offering way back in the early 1980s. It has had its share of rivals like Eon from Hyundai while the Tata Nano promised the moon but did not quite take off. Today, the latest rival to the Alto is the Renault Kwid and it will be interesting to see how the script pans out.

While Alto has, over the last decade, comfortably averaging 2.50 lakh units annually, it touched a peak of 3.47 lakh in 2010-11, followed quickly by 3.08 lakh the following year. What is equally interesting is the gradual growth of Swift and its compact sedan sibling, Dzire, during this period.

In 2006-07, Alto sales totalled 2.23 lakh units while the recently launched Swift posted a modest 63,000-plus (cars). The next couple of years saw Swift numbers jump to 1.1 lakh units while its sibling, Dzire accounted for 61, 952 cars. The peak sales of Alto in FY’11 also saw Swift jump to 1.4 lakh units with Dzire at 1.07 lakh.

Over the last couple of years, Dzire has overtaken Swift and is now cruising comfortably at a little over two lakh units per year and catching up quickly with Alto. Today, the difference between the two is barely 20,000 units and it is perhaps a matter of time before Dzire surges ahead reflecting changing customer preference in the market.

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