India’s leading car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki has doubled its market share in the sports utility market (SUV) segment, its market share has gone up to 20 percent in 2023 from 10.5 percent in 2022. The company introduced four SUVs in the past two years, including the Fronx, Jimny and Grand Vitara. SUV sales was a large portion of the company’s domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales this fiscal year, increasing to 36 percent in 2023 from 22 percent in 2022.
However, the sales of small cars in Maruti’s portfolio, such as the Alto and Baleno, have decreased by 29 percent. This is partly due to the company’s decision to moderate wholesales. Maruti Suzuki managed to cross the annual sales milestone of 20 lakh units in 2023, despite just a 1.3 percent decrease in total auto sales in December. Interestingly, urban growth surpassed rural growth for the first time in several months, standing at 12.10 percent.
In a recent conversation with Storyboard18, Shashank Srivastava, senior executive of marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki, indicated that by 2030, the penetration of EVs for passenger vehicles in India will be around 20 percent. For Maruti Suzuki and their own powertrain, by 2030 it’ll be 15 percent EV, 25 percent strong hybrids and 60 percent to be a mix of ethanol blended fuel, CNG and biogas.
There are a couple of challenges when selling an electric future to Indians. Srivastava said that the cost of acquisition needs to be reasonable. Currently this cost is 1.6 times that of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles. These costs have to be brought down and one solution to this is battery localisation. Secondly, range anxiety which can be solved by charging infrastructure being built.
Maruti’s overall market share in 2023 was 41.7 percent, a slight increase from the previous year’s 41.5 percent. The company recorded a growth rate of 8.4 percent, slightly higher than the industry’s 8.3 percent.