Maruti Suzuki India is gearing up to launch its new MPV, Invicto, on July 5. Bookings will kick off from June 19, said Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer- Sales and Marketing, at a media roundtable in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The company’s market research showed that customers were looking for a seven-seater with a price range of over INR 20 lakh. They did not want to be constrained by the SUV body style and had some specific requirements.
Nearly 1.5 lakh units of the 2.8 lakh three-row SUVs/MPVs sold in FY23 were priced above INR 20 lakh. This category is expected to reach 300,000 units this fiscal, said Srivastava. It is this positive outlook that prompted Maruti to expand its MPV portfolio with Suzuki’s global ally, Toyota, thus paving the way for the Invicto.
Toyota’s own Innova Hycross is part of this segment and Maruti’s latest offering could fuel its growth even further. Srivastava added that the company was quite enthusiastic given its good showing in the INR 10-15 lakh SUV/MPV segment where it has garnered 26% market share.
“Hopefully, we will be as successful in the INR 20 lakh plus space too and this is important, not only from a volume perspective but also from the viewpoint of imagery. It will have a very positive rub-off on our other brands,” he added.
With the Invicto, Maruti is also looking to tap into a completely new customer base where the target group is in the 35-45 age bracket. It comprises couples, a small family or even a joint family with income levels of over 150,000 MHI (median household income), said Srivastava. According to him, 58-60% of this category are additional car buyers.
Maruti is gearing up to provide a premium experience for these customers and the Nexa retail channel will play a role here. With Invicto, the company also gets its first product with ADAS and Srivastava said this will help in a deeper study of the technology for India and if it can be extended to other Maruti models.
“Democratisation of ADAS is quite possible going forward but we have to wait and see how the technology is absorbed by consumers on the models which are, or will be, available,” he added. There was a broad hint during the roundtable that the Invicto could be available in both petrol and hybrid options with Maruti clearly more bullish on the latter.
“We have seen demand for hybrids increasing both for the Vitara and (Toyota) Hyryder along with other models,” said Srivastava, attributing this to lower acquisition costs vis-a-vis electric vehicles as well as better fuel efficiency than petrol offerings.
The chip shortage could be a dampener as seen with Toyota Kirloskar Motor which had recently stopped booking for the higher end trim levels of the Innova Hycross hybrid models due to this problem. How this will pan out in the remainder of this fiscal remains to be seen.
Good Response To Jimny
Of the five new products introduced by Maruti since April 2022, four are earmarked for the NEXA channel with the Jimny being the latest to join the parade. The company has received over 31,000 bookings for the model and Srivastava said that prior to the price announcement, this was 92 per day and increased to 151 bookings daily once the price was announced.
Customer preferences clearly show that the manual transmission is slightly ahead of the AT variants and a greater tilt towards the top end Alpha variant. The Jimny is likely to have a waiting period of 7-8 months and most of its customers are from urban centres who are largely additional car buyers.
Moreover, they have specific requirements and are “looking for a lifestyle product from an image perspective rather than just off-roading”. Maruti is also exploring BTL (below the line) marketing to directly target these buyers by way of club events etc.
Also Watch