Maruti Suzuki has launched many new products in the recent past – like S-cross and Baleno.
Maruti Suzuki has launched many new products in the recent past – like S-cross and Baleno. Some of them wrote great success stories and some went unnoticed. The S-cross, the first exclusive NEXA product, miserably failed to gain momentum, which is rare sight in case of a Maruti Suzuki’s product. Company immediately went into damage control mode and tactically played the Baleno card. It worked well and is now laying strong foundation for the whole NEXA concept. Till now, company is sitting on a pile of more than 40,000 bookingsand has delivered around 13,000+ cars out of it. Let’s get into the mathematics behind that 13,000+ delivered Balenos.
Bold stance and subtle lines makes Baleno a good looking car.
Baleno is placed as a premium hatchback which is feature rich and offers everything you would get in an executive sedan but in body shell of hatchback. It sits in between Swift and Ciaz and shares same space with Dzire, in terms of asking price. Baleno is primarily offered to steal the market share from Hyundai Elite i20 and Honda Jazz, which had almost no competition from Maruti Suzuki, till its arrival. The strategy worked out well, and that too pretty quickly, as Baleno managed to outnumber Elite i20 within the month of its launch. The sales figureof last month shows that this new Maruti stood well ahead of the Korean competitor, with a decent margin of 810 units. At the same time it eat into the sales figure of its sibling – the Swift, whose sales number fell by around 34% compared to same month last year. While the Honda Jazz managed to attract just 3,367 customers.
Hyundai Elite i20 has grown year old now and hence losing freshness. But still has strong pull in the market.
Ideally speaking Maruti Suzuki has fallen prey to heavy cannibalization by compromising the sales of the Swift – India’s one of the most favorite hatchbacks. The Dzire managed to escape this, thanks to its slapped on boot, because of country’s love for sedans. MSIL has managed to absorb the major dent in sales of Swift because of high demand in festive season and has recorded a growth of close to 10%. On the other hand Hyundai has not only secured its ground but also recorded healthy growth of 23%, majority of which is contributed by Creta. So the next month’s sales figures will portray the real picture of impact Baleno has made on the market.
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