Betting on strong rural demand, Maruti Suzuki, India's top car maker, is looking to post double-digit growth this fiscal.
The automaker is also tapping dedicated groups like priests and pharma retailers which are not affected by slowdown.
The company had floated Rural 2.0 programme with an objective to cover almost 2 lakh villages.
Under its rural drive, the company connected with 94,000 villages last fiscal, while it is looking to target 200,000 villages this year. India has 651,000 villages.
Despite the overall decline in the passenger vehicle industry, the company had managed to gain an additional market share of 2.5% last fiscal, though its volumes declined 3% and sales grew a mere 3.4%.
The company is aiming for a 9-10% growth in volumes this year, on the back of strong rural connectivity and new launches.
"There are a lot of opportunities in the hinterland. Looking at the growing potential we have doubled up our reach in the rural region last year," said Mayank Pareek, chief operating officer, marketing & sales at Maruti Suzuki.
Rural currently contributes around 30% plus of company's overall volumes, while it is aiming to increase this number, going ahead.
For Maruti, any village having a population of less than 10,000 constitutes rural category.
Pareek said only 40% of farmers buy cars, while the rest of the volumes are contributed by professionals like teachers, etc.
In order to connect to potential customers, the company has also identified rural dealer sales executives (RDSE), who are mostly local people familiar with the local language. The company currently has 7,800 RDSEs.
Apart from this, Maruti Suzuki has also identified dedicated groups, which are not affected by the slowdown, for examples – temple priests, turmeric growers in Kerala, pharma retailers, mango growers in Ratnagiri, etc. Through these niche marketing initiatives, the company managed to sell almost 65,000 vehicles last year.
Maruti Suzuki currently has a distribution network of 1,331 outlets in the country, and aims to double the number in the next three years.
According to experts, with ongoing slowdown in the passenger vehicle market, the rural push by Maruti will help in getting the desired volumes.
Maruti last year received 6.7 million enquiries, but only managed to sell 1.53 million vehicles. "There is a latent demand, but conversions are taking time," said Pareek. Things are expected to improve in the second half of the year.
The company launched Celerio last year, while it is expected to launch 2-3 models this year, it had earlier indicated.
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