Maruti sees Alto sales rising 30% with new variant

The entry variant of the new Alto K10, slated for launch next Wednesday, is expected to be priced close to Rs 3 lakh.
For Maruti Suzuki India, the launch of this 1000 cc Alto is important not only because it would provide the company with increased market share in the ‘A2-’ segment but also because with the new launch, Maruti is expecting to entice a large chunk of the first-time car buyers.

The new car is 125 mm longer than existing Alto and at total length of 3,620 mm it should be longer than some of the other A2 segment cars such as WagonR, Estilo and Hyundai i10. The company is claiming fuel efficiency of 20.2 kmpl and that the Alto K10 can go from 0 to100 km per hour speed in just 13.3 seconds against about 14 seconds for other comparable cars.

Shashank Shrivastava, chief general manager (marketing), said Maruti has studied the A1 and ‘A2-’ segments very carefully recently in an attempt to increase its share here. “For the last 4 years, while the overall car market has increased 200%, the A1 plus A2- category has remained stagnant... also with the imminent arrival of 800 cc vehicles from Hyundai, Renault-Bajaj and General Motors, this space is expected to see increased competition in the coming years.”

He defined the A2- segment with the Alto 800, Chevy Spark and Santro Standard (non-AC variant) whereas the A1 category has the M800 and the Tata Nano. Maruti already accounts for a bulk of sales in this segment with about 20,000-21,000 Alto 800 sales a month out of total segment sales of 32,000-34,000 cars every month.

“With the launch of Alto K10, we expect incremental Alto brand sales of about 25-30%,” Shrivastava said. The current 800 cc Alto Std comes for about Rs 2.28 lakh in Delhi, Lx for about Rs 2.6 lakh and the Lxi variant for Rs 2.79 lakh. The new car should be priced between the Alto Lxi and the entry level Estilo, which comes of about Rs 3.3 lakh (all prices ex-showroom Delhi).

Denying any plans to also bring in a stripped down version of the Alto, Shrivastava said Alto K10 should attract those first-time buyers who have been either postponing purchases or looking for financing options to buy more expensive cars.