- Monday, May 05, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S automobile market is getting congested with each passing day, thanks to scores of new launches by competing companies and the race to get ahead of each other in the electric vehicle segment.
The compact sports utility vehicle (SUV) is set to become very competitive in India’s automobile industry in the coming months as no less than 10 models are competing with each other in the market at the moment. The makers are launching new models while overhauling the current ones, adding more edge to the competition, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.
Hyundai Motor India (HMIL), for instance, recently launched the all-new Venue while Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) will launch the Vitara Brezza on June 30 as a full model change with new features. Maruti and Hyundai are India’s top two car-sellers, respectively.
HMIL said the company has already received bookings for more than 8,000 units. The MSIL, which had also started bookings of the new Brezza, has received bookings of nearly 10,000 units so far. Both the makers had an order of more than 20,000 units of the previous/existing models of the same vehicles.
“The size of the entry SUV segment was five per cent in 2016 when we launched Brezza (the only competitor then was Ford EcoSport). It has grown up to 22 per cent till 2021. It is the largest segment in the industry, overtaking the premium hatchback segment at 21 per cent last year, which used to be 23 per cent of the overall market for the last five years,” Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director (Marketing & Sales), MSIL, was quoted as saying by BusinessLine.
The new Brezza will have over 30 new features in terms of technology, safety and comfort. It also includes a sunroof, which is the first in the history of MSIL, a 360-view camera and a heads-up display (HUD) which is also a first in the segment.
The compact or sub-four metre SUV market in India grew very fast in the last five years — five per cent to 15 per cent to 18 per cent to 22 per cent, Srivastava added.
From just Brezza and Ecosport (which has been discontinued) in 2016, several cars are now competing in the market now, including Hyundai Venue, Kia Sonet, Tata Nexon and Punch, Mahindra XUV300, Renault Kiger, Nissan Magnite and Toyota Urban Cruiser.
“We have given a lot of importance to design aspect also… today’s SUVs are looking as good as they are functional. And, small things like sunroof because today one in three cars sold is with a sunroof as far as Hyundai is concerned. In India, where probably you can open a sunroof for a few days in a year, but that is what aspiration is doing… people want a car with a sunroof,” Tarun Garg, director-dales, Marketing & Service at HMIL said, BusinessLine reported.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the compact SUV segment grew by 26 per cent year-on-year to 1,04,553 units in April-May 2022-23 as compared with 83,099 units in April-May 2021-22.
And, it will only grow more, said industry experts.
