Suzuki’s chief engineer states that they aim to become no. 1 in India’s premium hatchback segment with the launch of the Maruti Baleno. He mentions they would introduce the ‘wow’ factor in each of the cars they produce.
Suzuki launched the Baleno on 26th October and have priced it at Rs. 4.99 lakhs which is less than all its competitors like the Hyundai Elite i20 and Honda Jazz. The reason for this aggressive move has now become clear as Suzuki’s chief engineer recently mentioned in an interview that Suzuki aims at becoming the number 1 in the premium hatchback segment in India.
Suzuki mentioned that the Swift had tremendous success in India right from the time of its launch, but in the B-segment market the car was a little smaller than required. Hence since demand grew for a larger vehicle in the international market, Suzuki quickly realised that the new Baleno had good potential in India too, hence depending on the volume of sales Suzuki plans to introduce more such premium cars in the future.
Suzuki reported that the whole compact segment evolved from Maruti Suzuki’s Swift and that its competitors entered later. Suzuki also added that they are still present in the segment having the largest share. Though now the consumers have slightly shifted over the last 8 years. Suzuki said, they would now like to take the number 1 spot in the segment to achieve their strategic mid-term goal of 2 million vehicle sales and hence are moving into segments which have lots of growth potential.
Talking about the shift in customer perference over the past 8 years, Suzuki mentioned that customers are now looking at bigger products and those which are feature-packed. Customers are buying vehicles with premium offerings, having the latest gadgets and technology in them. Hence over the past few years, Suzuki’s competitors have been timely introducing new products with all these needs in mind. Suzuki is now seeing a significant potential in the segment and has launched the Baleno which will address all these needs.
Suzuki mentioned that it is confident that its all new Baleno is better than all its segment competitors like the Hyundai Elite i20 and Honda Jazz. The company says that the Baleno has better styling, performance and the best in-class fuel efficiency. Along with this, the Baleno is also lighter than all its competitors by around 100 kgs. Suzuki also mentioned that the Baleno comes with safety equipment in all variants. The Japanese automaker summarises the Baleno as a complete package in terms of style and performance.
Suzuki also mentioned that they are not considering any new design language for their products as each brand in each segment has its own design, instead they want to create a ‘wow’ factor in not only its vehicles, but in every feature it offers and that is their main objective henceforth, looking into future products with the Baleno being the start.
Source – EconomicTimes.com
