After leading the market in the sub ₹10 lakh and ₹10-15 lakh vehicle categories, the country’s largest passenger vehicle maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) is now looking at a major share in the ₹20 lakh plus, premium multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) category, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The company is entering the category on July 5 with the launch of ‘Invicto’, which is being manufactured at the Toyota Kirloskar Motor factory as part of the Suzuki-Toyota partnership. The bookings for Invicto will commence on June 19.

“We are market leaders in less than ₹10 lakh category with almost 60 per cent market share and in ₹10-15-lakh category maybe, we became the market leaders last year with 26 per cent share. And, in April to May of this year, our market share has consolidated even further to about 30 per cent in the ₹10-15 lakh category,” Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer - Marketing and Sales, MSIL, told businessline.

Growing segment

He said the company wanted to inform the consumers before they book the vehicle that this will be a premium MPV and MSIL is launching it now, as the segment seems to have emerged rather quickly. “Traditionally people look at three-row SUV and three-row MPV as separate segments; we realised looking at data that this is actually one segment... We saw that this market has actually grown very fast,” Srivastava added.

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The category recorded 2.58 lakh units sales last year, and is expected to clock 3 lakh this year, he said adding that MSIL saw that as an opportunity to to participate in it by sourcing large MPVs from Toyota.

On the company’s marketing strategy for such expensive vehicles, he said, “The same question was raised when we came into the higher-end like Ertiga, XL6 or Grand Vitara, but we already have become market leaders in that category. Moreover, we will do this through the Nexa channel, which has come very close to number three as a brand.”

He said the company will also focus more on individual/ private owners rather than fleet owners. The target will be on 35-45-year-old young couple with with high medium household income (MHI).

Jimny bookings

On cancellations in bookings of the recently launched Jimny, which received mixed reactions after announcing the prices (₹12.74-15.05 lakh, ex-showroom), Srivastava said: “We haven’t seen cancellation as such and the number of bookings since the price launch has gone up on an average. The number of bookings per day on an average was 92, but the bookings post the price announcement for the last seven days is 151,” he added. The company has received more than 31,000 of bookings for the Jimny so far.

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