The so called furor over the anticipated decline of share by Maruti in passenger car segment is sidelined. The competitive parade from Honda Jazz, Ford Figo, Volkswagen Polo, Tata Nano, Chevrolet Beat has no direct impact on Maruti till date. The hatchback segment is retaining Maruti still on top despite the fall of the entire market share by 50% during April 2010. Maruti enjoys almost 70% in this hatchback segment but the dip in net sale was due to the Alto’s slow reach, marked with the BS IV norms. However, it was a temporary hitch and Maruti is now regaining its hold, while Hyundai and Tata are racing against the loss. To cover up the already met loss and to avert further loss, Maruti is now eyeing on going in for CNG versions so that the cost effective strategy would work out well.
The CEO of Maruti for Marketing and Sales said that the company could secure its status by sticking to value-for-money, reliability and trust, style of the product concepts. Maruti’s high valor is its pricing competitively for the products amidst tough competition. The HSBC analysis reveals that in terms of cost yield, Maruti WagonR has an edge over Chevrolet Beat and Ford Figo which have 40% and 25% higher pricing and low resale values. Maruti is on the verge of negotiating with commodity vendors to finalize the cost of components before making the next rise in prices. Maruti is able to please its customers by reducing the waiting period of its Dzire from 6 months to 3 months while for Swift Diesel the waiting period is one month from 10 weeks.