Maruti Suzuki India has launched a ‘premium’ hatchback called the Ritz to do battle in a segment set to see greater competition.
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The Ritz, built on the Swift platform, is Maruti’s version of the Hungarian-built Suzuki Splash also made on an OEM basis for General Motors Europe as the Opel/Vauxhall Agila.
Maruti, which sells one of every two cars sold in India, expects to get a “good response” for the new car, managing director and CEO Shinzo Nakanishi told Reuters, declining to forecast sales.
Petrol models are priced from INR390,000 (US$7,860) to INR480,000 ex-showroom in New Delhi and INR465,000-499,000 rupees for diesel versions, the company said.
Maruti is expecting stronger competition in the upper end of the Indian compact car market with a number of launches expected in the coming months and next year.
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By GlobalDataHonda Motor will launch its Jazz (Fit), Volkswagen‘s Skoda Auto the new Fabia and General Motors India also also has a compact car lined up for launch later this year.
These will be followed by Volkswagen’s Polo supermini and a sedan variant next year and Toyota’s Yaris (Vitz) and Nissan’s March (Micra) supermini, according to Reuters.
Indian car sales slowed sharply in the past year as the global economic downturn hurt demand and drove borrowing costs up but analysts expect a faster recovery because of low vehicle ownership.
Industry sales are forecast to expand 3-5% in the year to next March, after slowing sharply to 1% growth in the year just ended, according to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers data cited by the news agency.
The upper end of the compact car segment reported sales of 79,339 units in April, up nearly 8% from a year earlier, the data showed.
The petrol Ritz has the new K12M engine, manufactured at Maruti’s facility in Gurgaon, near Delhi.
It is the first passenger car in India to meet BS-IV emission norms, in petrol as well as diesel variants, a Maruti statement said, adding this was “many months ahead of the BS-IV norms being applicable in India”.
MSIL said the Ritz would help consolidate its leadership in the highly competitive compact car segment where it has the largest market share of 58% in the A2 segment.
“Being a car meant for the family, the Ritz has received special attention in the area of seating comfort. The rear seat has been designed for comfortable seating of three passengers,” Maruti said.
Changes for India included raised ground clearance of 170mm to suit local road conditions.
The diesel engine option is a 1.3 litre, 16-valve ‘DdiS’ unit, developing 75PS.
The diesel version of the Swift hatchback has been seeing good demand with a waiting period of 3-4 months, company officials told Reuters.
“Maruti is planing to increase (diesel) engine capacity to 300,000 units by the end of this fiscal year from 200,000 now,” Maruti marketing chief Mayank Pareek said.
