Once a darling of the masses, hatchback cars are now falling out of favour. The market share of hatchback cars to overall passenger vehicles (PVs) has dropped from 47.4% in FY18 to just 27.7% in FY24, latest data collated from the industry shows.
In FY18, as many as 1,558,787 hatchbacks were sold in a total market of 3,288,581 PVs. In FY24, this dropped to 1,168,593 hatchbacks in a total market of 4,218,746 PVs.
This implies a sales drop of 25% for hatchbacks from FY18 to FY24, even as the PV market grew 28% during the same period.
Automotive analysts said the fall can be attributed to the general rising interest in SUVs, but more specifically due to rising sales, and more model launches of sub-4 metre SUVS, which are marginally more expensive than hatchbacks, especially premium hatches.
Although a lot of SUVs had been launched starting 2015-16— including Hyundai Creta—hatchbacks got hit starting 2019-21 when sub-4 metre SUVs started arriving one after another.
The market share of hatchback cars to PVs was a high 47.4% in FY18, 46% in FY19, 46.5% in FY20, and 45.6% in FY21, around the time when there weren’t many sub-4 metre SUVs in the market.
In FY22, this ratio dropped sharply to 37.5%, and further to 34.4% in FY23, and just 27.7% in FY24, largely because sub-4 metre SUVs such as Hyundai Venue, Kia Sonet, Toyota Urban Cruiser, Nissan Magnite, and Renault Kiger were launched in quick succession.
These vehicles were just 10-20% more expensive than premium hatchbacks such as Maruti Suzuki Baleno.
