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India’s largest passenger carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, is beginning to make its presence felt in the CV segment, at least in the mini-trucks.
The company’s mini-truck Super Carry, launched in 2016, displaced Mahindra & Mahindra as the No 2 player in the segment in the December 2020 quarter, No 1 being the Tata Ace. Today, every fifth mini-truck — those with a gross vehicle weight of 2 tonnes or below, with a load carrying capacity of less than a tonne — sold in India is a Super Carry. It has garnered a market share of nearly 20 per cent within a short span of four years.
Maruti was the only player in the segment to record a growth in the December quarter. Super Carry almost doubled its sales to 12,076 units during the quarter — against 6,287 units in the year-ago period — displacing Mahindra & Mahindra, which sold 9,909 units. Segment leader Tata Motors sold 29,686 units.
“Super Carry has been able to create a brand name for itself,” Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki, told BusinessLine .
Wide acceptance
“Super Carry owners vouch for its qualities like best-in-segment power, mileage, easy maintenance, comfort and enhanced storage capacity. Additionally, being the first small truck launched with a BS-VI petrol variant offering a powerful 1196 cc 4-cylinder engine, it has found wide acceptance,” he added.
For the April-December 2020 period, Tata Motors, Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki sold 56,061 units, 19,982 units and 19,917 units, respectively.
The mini-truck segment was created after Tata Motors’ launch of the Ace, in 2005. A few years later, Mahindra entered it and now has three products — Jeeto, Maxximo and Supro.
Though higher payload vehicles such as pick-up trucks have started gaining momentum over the past 7-8 years, mini-trucks continue to attract their own set of buyers; but sales continue to grow at a moderate pace.
Maruti Suzuki has sold more than 70,000 units of Super Carry since its launch. The S-CNG variant contributes 23 per cent of sales with a growth rate of 15 per cent over FY20.
The company recently expanded Super Carry S-CNG sales to New Delhi.
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