In a bid to boost sales in the mini and compact segment that has been dull in recent months, Maruti Suzuki has decided to cut prices of some variants of Alto K10 and S-Presso. The S-Presso LXI Petrol model has been brought down from Rs 5.1 lakh to Rs 4.99 lakh and the Alto K10 VXI Petrol variant has seen a price cut of Rs 6500.
This new price increase follows the previous one, which was an increase of 3.9 percent reduction in Maruti Suzuki’s total vehicle sales in August 2024. The company sold 181,782 units in the month, while it sold 189,082 units in the same month of the previous year. The local market sales were 145,570 units while the exports were 26,003 units.
This is especially the case in the mini and compact segments where sales have reduced to 68,699 from 84,660 in August 2023. Sales of compact cars, such as Baleno, Celerio, Dzire, Ignis and Swift also dropped by 20% to 58,051 units as against 72,451 units in the same month of the previous year.
Maruti Suzuki India's Senior Executive Officer (Marketing & Sales), Partho Banerjee, attributed the overall decline to a strategic reduction in vehicle dispatches. He said, “Our focus has been that our channel partners are able to have a reasonably healthy stock to sell the vehicles, so we are continuously trying to break the stocks down.”
But there was an improvement in the dispatches of utility vehicles which stood at 62,684 units last month as compared to 58,746 units earlier. This increase comprises models like Grand Vitara, Brezza, Ertiga, Invicto, Fronx, and XL6.
The price reductions are viewed as tactical that should increase consumption in the segments that are not very active. This strategy by Maruti Suzuki is a strategy to encourage the market and get its market share back in the Indian automotive market.
