Maruti Suzuki India, which sells multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) like Ertiga and XL6, is hopeful of retaining its leadership status in the segment in FY23 with an over 60% market share, according to a senior company official.
The company launched the new Ertiga on Friday in the price range of Rs 8.35 lakh to Rs 12.79 lakh (ex-showroom). The new XL6 will enter the market on April 21.
“Our market share is just above 60% for MPVs. We are hopeful that in the current year we will be able to retain the large market share that we already have in this segment,” Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director, marketing and sales, Maruti Suzuki India, told FE.
“The MPV segment is about 20,000-22,000 units a month, of which 13,500 units come from Maruti. The Ertiga contributes 10,000 units and XL6 around 3,500 units. We are expecting a similar sort of range in FY23,” he added.
The industry-wide MPV volumes stood at around 259,000 units in FY22, and with sales of nearly 156,000 units, Maruti’s market share in the segment was a little over 60%. In comparison, while the MPV volume for the industry was 200,854 units in FY21, Maruti had a market share of 57% with sales of 114,403 units.
Apart from Ertiga and XL6, the MPV segment includes models like Toyota Innova Crysta, Renault Triber, Mahindra Marazzo, Kia Carens and Kia Carnival.
CNG variants make up 45% of the overall volumes of Ertiga, though XL6 does not have a CNG option. “The running cost for CNG vehicles now is around Rs 1.85 per km compared with Rs 5.20 per km for petrol and diesel vehicles. There is a big variation between the running costs. Though the CNG prices have increased, the gap is so large that we think the preference of consumers for CNG will continue,” Srivastava said.
CNG vehicles contribute 8% to the overall passenger vehicle sales in terms of volume. For Maruti Suzuki India, they now account for about 17% of the total sales. The company had sold around 163,000 units of CNG cars in FY21. The sales increased 44% to 235,000 units in FY22.
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As many as nine vehicles of Maruti, including Alto, S-Presso, Eeco, WagonR, Celerio, Dzire, Ertiga, Super Carry and Tour S, have a CNG option. Last month, FE had reported that the company is planning to launch a CNG variant of its popular selling premium hatchback Baleno. Among rivals, Hyundai Motor India sells four CNG models – Santro, Grand i10 Nios, Xcent and Aura – and Tata Motors sells two – Tiago iCNG and Tigor iCNG – at present.
With the semiconductor shortage impacting the production of cars, Maruti has almost 300,000 pending bookings now. While Ertiga has 102,000 pending bookings, XL6 has close to 6,500. “Our production was limited last year due to the semiconductor shortage. The constraint will continue in this quarter as well,” Srivastava observed.
