The premium hatchback segment is anticipated to grow in the Indian passenger vehicle market, even as SUVs remain the dominant choice among customers, a senior executive of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd said on Saturday.
The company, which has introduced the new version of its premium hatchback Baleno with special festive prices starting at ₹6.09 lakh (ex-showroom Bengaluru), believes that when the overall passenger vehicles (PV) sales is expected to reach the size of 63 lakh units annually, the segment will have a play in the 35 per cent of the market, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, Partho Banerjee told PTI.
When GST 2.0 came, many in the industry said it is the SUV which is going to be the major beneficiary, but right now the company’s hatchbacks are doing very well, he said, adding that “there is a market for SUV also, but there is also a market for premium hatchbacks”.
In the last five months, the premium hatchback segment has clocked 2.5 lakh units out of a total PV industry sales of close to 4.4 lakh units at a monthly run rate of around 50,000 units.
Compared to the pre-GST 2.0 period, premium hatchback sales have grown by 17 per cent, and MSIL witnessed a 28 per cent growth in the segment, Banerjee noted.
“Every third vehicle in the premium hatchback segment that is being sold today happens to be the Baleno. It has got a very high brand consideration, and in the last five months of this financial year, we have sold close to 8,3177 units, at over 16,500 units per month,” he added.
The company has fully utilised the production capacity of Baleno and Fronx at its Hansalpur plant in Gujarat, Banerjee added.
Asserting that the premium hatchbacks are here to stay, Banerjee said, “If the PV industry reaches 6.3 million units in FY31 and even if SUVs are 60-65 per cent of the total market, there is a huge market for the premium hatchback in the remaining 35 per cent”.
The new Baleno comes with a first-in-segment Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) with ventilated front seats. It is powered by the company’s ‘Advanced Z12E’ powertrain with a maximum power output of 61 kW at 5,700 rpm and 112.4 Nm of peak torque at 4,500 rpm. It is equipped with idle start-stop technology.