Maruti Suzuki has a wide sales network for passenger cars but is looking to set up a new sales network to market and sell its upcoming Y9T LCV.
Maruti Suzuki is India’s biggest 4-wheeler manufacturer. The company also has a huge sales and service network spanning over almost every city in the country. Most of the products from Maruti’s stable make it to the top 20 seller’s list every month. When the company was incepted in 1982, the agreement also mentioned that the manufacturer can produce and sell LCVs (Lightweight Commercial Vehicles) in the market but these plans got shelved owing to poor market response. Now looking at the success that our homegrown commercial vehicles like the Tata Ace and Mahindra Maxximo have got, Maruti too revived its plans to launch an LCV.
Suzuki already sells the Carry LCV in countries like China, Indonesia and Pakistan. Maruti’s new LCV will share its underpinnings with the Carry. The LCV has been codenamed Y9T and it was spotted undergoing testing in India a couple of months back. Maruti has a large 1400-dealership strong sales network in India but news is that the automaker is looking to set up a completely new sales network to market and sell its LCV. The company feels that their passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles will both cater to a completely different set of buyers and hence the company doesn’t want to sell both the product types in the same showrooms.
While Maruti Suzuki is looking out for new dealers for its LCV, the company doesn’t mind if existing dealers too want to set up separate showrooms to enter into the LCV sales business. Also, the Y9T will be launched in limited cities initially to gauge market response and there won’t be any all-India launch. The Maruti Y9T LCV will be available in both diesel and CNG options and the diesel engine will be a 792cc unit while CNG will be available with the same petrol engine used on the Eeco. The Y9T will be launched in the first quarter of 2015.
