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India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki entered the luxury sedan segment with the launch of its premium sedan Kizashi.
The new car is the company's costliest model yet. The company, which has close to 50 per cent market share in the domestic passenger vehicle market, does not expect Kizashi to significantly boost sales in the short-term but expects demand to grow gradually for this segment.
“We are anticipating that this market will grow, there will be demand for such cars in the long term,” said Mr Mayank Pareek, Managing Executive Officer, Maruti Suzuki.
With the Kizashi being critical for the company in building a strong brand in the fast growing ‘premium' sedan category, it has positioned the sedan very aggressively when compared with to the competition.
The sedan has a 2.4-litre petrol engine and will be offered with manual and automatic transmission options. The manual transmission model will cost Rs 16.5 lakh (ex-showroom) in New Delhi while the automatic version has been priced at Rs 17.5 lakh (ex-showroom).
In terms of size and features the Kizashi compares to A5 segment products like the Honda Accord (Rs 18.5 plus) and Skoda Superb (Rs 18.2 lakh plus), but the price positioning has stepped down to the to the A4 segment models like the Honda Civic (Rs 14.2 lakh for top-end) and Toyota Corolla (Rs 14.3 lakh for top). Lower pricing than competition can help the company make up for the lack of a ‘premium' brand image.
“The Kizashi is a major step forward for Maruti Suzuki,” said the company's Chief Executive Mr Shinzo Nakanishi. “We are fully geared to delight customers in a segment where we have been absent so far,” he added.
Intense competition
The luxury sedan segment is a meagre 2.8 per cent of the total automobile market in India. But already there is intense competition in the segment with likes of Honda, Toyota, Skoda and Volkswagen already present in the segment.
The company has already stared taking orders for the Kizashi and deliveries will begin in March. Maruti Suzuki will import the car as completely built up units from Suzuki's Sagara plant in Japan.
Mr Nakanishi said that the company will consider assembling or manufacturing the car in India at a later stage. Manufacturing the car in India is likely to make the car cheaper.
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