Maruti Suzuki Bets On Jimny To Break Into SUV Big League

With the launch of the new Jimny, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. is aiming to increase its market share in the SUV segment, according to senior executive officer, marketing and sales Shashank Srivastava.

The company aims to increase its share in the SUVs to 24-25%, Srivastava told BQ Prime's Sajeet Manghat. It currently has 31,000 bookings of the new five-door Jimny SUV, he said.

There are two variants of Jimny—manual transmission and automatic transmission. Roughly 50% bookings are for manual and 50% are for the automatic variant, Srivastava said.

The SUV segment has been growing, and customers' preferences are going towards that shape of vehicle, according to Srivastava. "The segment, about four years ago, was only about 26% of the market, and today it is almost 45% of the market, clearly the largest."

"We have 65% of the market share in the non-SUV segments. Last year, the company had 12.3% of the SUV market share, with the overall share being under 45%," he said.

Maruti Suzuki targets a 50% share in the overall car market in the medium term. To achieve this, the company needs to increase its share in the SUV segment, Srivastava said.

On the new multi-purpose vehicle that Maruti is launching on July 5, he said the company will be competing in the segment with seven other products. "It is going to be very challenging and interesting."