The country’s largest maker, Maruti Suzuki will be launching the sedan version of its most popular hatchback model, the Swift. The new Swift sedan is rumoured to be called as Swift 3.99, since the car has been designed with its overall length below 4 metre to get excise duty benefits. Thus, the company looks forward to expand its portfolio to 3 body styles on the same platform to gain profits and also work around the Government’s excise duty structure. The new Swift 3.99 is expected to be priced Rs. 50,000 below the current Swift Dzire and it is definitely going to plug the gap with the new Swift hatch positioned below.
“The Dzire sales are still strong enough to not pull it out of the market. Adding a third body style in the Swift range will mean incremental volumes without much higher investments, especially when auto sales are slowing and companies are looking to delay capacity expansion,” an industry expert said.
This however, is not any new strategy. The same business concept is being followed by many global companies like Toyota, Volkswagen and Tata Motors. Tata Motors used the same business concept when it launched the Indica, Indigo, Indigo CS (sub 4 metre) and the Indigo XL (longer variant) all based on the same platform. Having a different offering in each egment gives the customers plenty of choice while buying the car of their choice while allowing the companies to keep the development costs low. Maruti Suzuki is setting up its second manufacturing facility in Manesar with a focus on increasing the production capacity of the company and the launch of the new Swift 3.99 is timed along with that. By January, daily production at the second new assembly line at Manesar is being increased to 900 units, from the current 200, taking the total capacity to around 2,100 units a day. Increasing the production capacity will help in meeting the demand for the additional models since the company is already facing lot of backlog for the Swift. Currently the Swift and the Dzire are among the most popular models with diesel variants accounting for more than 80% of the total sales. In November, the Dzire accounted for about 13 per cent (10,403 units) of Maruti Suzuki’s sales, while around a lakh customers are still waiting for delivery of the new Swift.
Renderings Source – Theophilus Chin
