Maruti First-Time Buyers Contribute To 50 Percent First Quarter Sales

Maruti Alto 800 BS6 Front — The mini segment cars, including the Alto, grew by 49 percent in July

Maruti Suzuki saw more first-time buyers opt for its products, taking the domestic passenger vehicle sales in July to 97,768 units, a 1.3 percent growth over July 2019.

While (during July) the number of Maruti first-time buyers rose, replacement buying (exchange) went down. Also, Maruti said that additional car buying was also up because of “the functionality requirement”.

This was revealed by Maruti Suzuki India Executive Director (Sales and Marketing) Shashank Srivastava. Share of first-time buyers was around 51-53 percent in the first quarter this fiscal, up by 5.5 percent, against the last quarter of 2019-20.

Enquiry levels also reached 85-90 percent of pre-COVID levels, says the carmaker, with the mini and compact segments having the biggest share at 65 percent, up by 10 percent.

Sales of Alto and S-Presso (mini segment) grew by 49.1 percent at 17,258 units, while that of Wagon R, Celerio, Ignis, Swift, Dzire and Baleno combined (compact segment), dipped 10.4 percent to 51,529 units as against 57,512 units of July 2019.

These numbers indicate that personal transport is now being preferred by the masses, thus increase in Maruti first-time buyers. But Maruti knows that income levels might be suppressed for sometime and hence says the trend is towards what is called “telescoping of demand downwards”.

Sales during the festive season is unpredictable as the “sentiment this time is little unprecedented”, says Maruti. Also, out of 3080 outlets that it has, about 81-91 percent are open at any given time. This is due to local lockdowns.

Going forward, the company says the long-term demand will depend on the fundamentals of the economy, local lockdowns, and how the spread of COVID-19 is dealt with.