At Maruti, DZire cannibalises super sibling Swift

Maruti’s Swift DZire small sedan has been so successful, it may be eating into sibling Swift’s sales.

Since February, when the second-generation DZire was launched, India’s largest carmaker has retailed around 40,000 units of the sub-4-metre sedans and has 60,000 pending bookings, while the company sold 60,100 units of Swift between January and March.

Sales of Swift grew 70% year on year in March.

Company officials said the waiting period on both products is somewhere around four months now. That’s a big decline in the Swift waiting list, which was eight months at one point.

With a price difference of less than Rs50,000 between the two cars, customers of the Swift hatchback are converting their bookings to DZire, according to dealers.

A New Delhi-based dealer said on the condition of anonymity that around 40-50% of Swift bookings have been converted to those for DZire. “Customers prefer DZire for its value-for-money. For the Rs50,000 extra, they get additional bootspace and a music system.”

According to a senior official from Maruti Suzuki who, too, did not wish to be named, the waiting period for Swift has come down due to a combination of increase in the production of Swift and availability of diesel engines, while DZire’s waiting has risen.

“However, there is still a substantial number of bookings for Swift. Also, because of its price and features, people are preferring the DZire over i20, Fabia, Polo and Vento,” the executive said.
Production of Swift has been increased from 12,000 units previously to 20,000 units a month in the past 2-3 months, he said.

DZire is also generating good numbers after launch in February. “Earlier we used to sell 8,000 a month. Now that’s almost doubled to 16,000-17,000 units,” he said.

Shashank Srivastava, chief general manager (marketing), Maruti Suzuki, said Dzire is aggressively priced, so it is possible that people might find sedan attractive.

“The gap between the two vehicles is not very wide,” Srivastava agreed.

Labour issues and limited diesel engine capacity had led to a huge order backlog for the new Swift, which was launched in August last year.

A Mumbai-based Maruti Suzuki dealer said apart from the Pearl White colour, other colours of Swift diesel are available with a waiting period of less than two months.

“On the other hand, the waiting period for DZire is 4-5 months. We are getting almost 200 bookings per month for the DZire. Almost 70% of Swift bookings have been converted to DZire.”

Sanjeev Bafna, who is a Maruti Suzuki dealer in Nashik, Nanded and a few other areas, said the conversion is happening across cities. At his dealership, there is a conversion of 20-25% from Swift to Dzire, he said.