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Maruti Suzuki has been working day-in and day-out on revamping its complete product line. India’s largest automaker has launched updates to most of its models in the past two years, including the Swift and new Swift DZire, which account for a major chunk of the company’s sales. Maruti Suzuki has also launched variants of other vehicles and is now working on the Ritz facelift and Alto replacement. However, somewhere Maruti Suzuki seems to have forgotten the SX4, which was once a formidable competitor to the Honda City. So what is Maruti Suzuki really upto?
In the past three months, sales of the Maruti Suzuki SX4 has declined sharply. In March, Maruti Suzuki sold 1520 units of the SX4, while sales dropped to 634 units in April and 405 units in May. The SX4’s competitors are selling quite well, with Hyundai shifting close to 5000 units of the Verna every month, while Honda sells around 3000 units of the City, Nissan around 2500 units of the Sunny and Volkswagen and Skoda around 2000 units of the Vento and Rapid each. The SX4 is available with a diesel and petrol engine (manual and automatic) but still the popularity and sales of this C-segment car seems to diminish every month.
The reason is quite simple. Maruti Suzuki is being complacent with the SX4. The company has not launched a facelift of the vehicle, nor is it advertising the car as aggressively. The Swift DZire might also be eating into the sales of the SX4. The SX4 offers a lot of features at a slightly lesser price than the competition but with no update to the model since quite some time now, prospective buyers are pulled to fresher alternatives. The SX4 has also started to look dated infront of the Fluidic Verna and the new Ford Fiesta. It is high time Maruti Suzuki turns its focus on the SX4 and gives it a cosmetic makeover or launches a limited edition like the SX4 Poise (shown at the 2012 Auto Expo).
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