Maruti Launches the Maruti 800 Uniq

Limited edition variant seems to be the magic word in order to revive interest in a particular car model that is not exactly hogging the limelight at dealerships.Maruti have once again turned to this strategy and we have the Maruti 800 Uniq.

What's so unique about it.Maruti have tried catering to the latest fad of beige interiors,the the door panels too would get the fabric trim and you get a new console box as well as a parcel tray.Ofcourse how can you forget the exterior graphics and stickers screaming this car is Unique.

For how long are people going to fall into this trap of limited editions I am not sure.Thankfully this new version just costs an additional Rs.5100 more over its not so unique variants.

Look who wants to ride the Tata Nano wave:Maruti Suzuki

If ever you wanted to see smart business men at work here's one of the best examples.Maruti Suzuki in a stroke of genius is actually using the prosperity created by the Tata Nano in rural Bengal and using this opportunity to sell Maruti cars so much so even suppliers for the Tata Nano claim they have become Maruti loyalists.

The unnamed supplier for the Tata Nano says that his income has increased and hence he is opting for the Maruti Alto mostly because he is a Maruti loyalist.Wow I hope Tata Motors is listening.

Maruti Suzuki is actually betting that as incomes rise people would still go in for the Maruti 800 and the Alto as compared to the Tata Nano.Now we know why Maruti is not exactly in a hurry to launch a car with the same price tag as the Tata Nano.

Maruti is betting big on the rural villages in Bengal and is targetting sales of about 2000 vehicles from this region alone.

[source:thetelegraph ]

Maruti 800 to compete with the Tata Nano

After a lot of yes and no,it is becoming clear that Maruti indeed is worried about the impact the Tata nano can have on Maruti Suzuki. In order to allay fears that Maruti would be caught on the wrong foot as and when the Nano comes on the roads,Maruti has displayed to bankers a stripped down version which in terms of pricing would be very close to the Tata Nano.

How Maruti have achieved this low pricing is unknown but an already stripped down car the Maruti 800 is said to have been further stripped down.The ex-showroom price of this model is around Rs.75,000 cheaper than existing model and should be available for a price tag of around Rs.1.2-1.5 lakhs ex-showroom pricing.

Now its pretty much established that the one lakh tag for nano cannot stay on for long and what should help Maruti would be the supply demand mismatch which Tata are bound to face.Also until 2010 atleast the Nano will have no rival other than the Maruti 800.

However I would really love to see what Maruti mean by a stripped down version of the Maruti 800.

[Source: Business Standard]

Maruti to launch the Maruti 800 duo soon

Maruti's dual fueled car the wagon R has been an extremely popular choice amid rising fuel prices and the overall cost-effectiveness of automotive LPG as compared to petrol.Maruti are technically unable to accommodate diesel engines in their smaller cars leaving aside the swift and hence they have no choice but at looking at other alternatives like CNG and LPG to combat the high fuel prices.[CNG being not as widely available as LPG ]

Also the Maruti 800 being in the market for well over 20 years and customers having higher aspirations has meant sales have fallen down drastically and maruti needed to take some corrective steps to improve sales especially with the expected arrival of the Tata NANO which is supposedly more fuel efficient than the Maruti 800.

The LPG variant of the maruti 800 will also be called duo[maruti 800 duo].The car is going to be launched some time next week with a price tag of about Rs.20,000 more than the petrol only version.The kits would be factory fitted and as with LPG vehicles nowadays switching between the two fuels should be a breeze and the driver would not experience a drastic loss in power.

But would this move be enough to rekindle interest in the good old Maruti 800,doubtful.

[source:Economic times]

Maruti Suzuki now wants to do a Honda

I guess selling a cheap car is a sin after all.Now the people's car manufacturer is all set to follow the footsteps of its more illustrious japanese rival,Honda.

Yes Maruti is planning to ditch the volumes game and is focusing more on margins and the premium segment.This comes in the wake of competition in terms of pricing from the Tata nano.Maruti now no longer will enjoy the pricing advantage.It instead is looking at selling sedans and other vehicles in the premium segment[upwards of Rs. 7 lakhs] and wants people who buy cars like the Nano to aspire to buy a Maruti one day.Maruti themselves have realised that one day people buying these cheap cars could easily afford the more expensive cars which would help Maruti in terms of margins a strategy maruti used well with the SX4 and now with the Dzire too.Moreover demand for the cheap cars is reducing as seen by reduced demand for cars like the maruti 800 wheras the more pricier swift is doing much better.

As far as the back end is concerned the parent company suzuki has shown the way forward with concepts like the Kizashi.The Kizashi would be targetted at D-segment customers and should be out by 2010.Maruti on the other hand has tied up with US based Raytheon to create a team of special sales executives who would look after the premium segment customers for dealers.Maruti has also hired more than 1000 engineers for R&D towards high-end products..Perhaps advertising less is part of this strategy for oflate Maruti ads have come down drastically.

The good old Maruti as we know may just seize to exist.What remains to be seen is whether Maruti spins off the premium segment into an altogether different division[like lexus for toyota].

However it is not as easy as it sounds Maruti Suzuki have to go a very long way before it can come anywhere close to a premium car company.

Ps: All SX4 owners are being personally thanked by maruti on the first anniversary of the sx4.

[source:Hindustan Times ]

Maruti Suzuki's biggest nightmare:Hyundai Motors

People are talking about Tata Motors and especially the Nano as Maruti Suzuki's biggest headache but if you look closely an even bigger threat exists in the form of Hyundai motors.

The santro had and is doing very well in India but what has leapfroged Hyundai into centrestage is no doubt the i10.With the i10 Hyundai are able to winover a major chunk of small car buyers.Infact right now if I had to shop for a small car I would pick nothing but the i10.The fact that the i10 would be getting a diesel by the year end[2008] would mean alarm bells ringing not only in the Maruti camp but Tata too for its indica could not have faced a bigger threat.Maruti on the other hand do not have a diesel in the B segment and the other fuel options[CNG,LPG] are not necessarily as widespread as diesel.

Hyundai do not have such a blockbuster product in the B+ segment but all that could change with the launch of the i20 again expected towards the end of the year[2008].In the C segment Hyundai has not suffered as badly as say a ford.Then there is the D segment,here too the new elantra with the diesel engine is expected to bring in numbers/

But the biggest threat would be the new small car which hyundai are targeting to be sold with a price tag of $3500[Rs.1,50,000 approx].This car should cause a lot of problems to maruti especially and if there is a diesel available too at similar pricing God help Maruti.Maruti however have some time at their disposal since this car is only expected by 2012.

Hyundai have done well to realise the importance of the Indian markets much before other rivals.They have also gambled by launching the i10 first in the market and ensuring it caters to local choice as well.The end result is if you keep track of monthly car sales figures as each month passes by the gap between hyundai and maruti suzuki keeps getting narrower and narrower.Unless maruti does something drastic I have no doubt that Hyundai could unseat Maruti from its number one position.

[image source:jalponik]

Toyota's customer unfriendly initiatives

Toyota have always looked at their profitability even at the cost of the Customers convienience and even compromising security of the vehicle.

As far as the inconvenience bit ,you have the option of power steering on the base model E but no air conditioning option even after paying close to Rs9 lakhs but the worst bit is the G1 model does not come with an intermittent wiper,something which cars much cheaper come with.

And this is not the case with Toyota India itself,I was going through this review about the american corolla and the first thing the reviewer was very critical was Toyota's attempt at cutting corners which was emphasized most in the fact that Toyota is only giving power windows as a standard feature on the top end corolla model compare this to Honda who have long made power windows standard across their entire civic range.

But these are things one can live with, what is not acceptable is the security bit.Toyota knew that its earlier MUV the Toyota qualis was one of the favorite amongst car thieves and this is precisely why they came up with immobilisers for the innova range but they kept this out from the base model innova[E].And what do we have now apart from the Tavera and the Indica,the Toyota innova is the favourite amongst car thieves according to a newspaper report.

Toyota have only to look at Maruti as an example,Maruti has given the immobiliser feature[icats] across its range even to the cheapest Maruti 800.This just costs the customer an added Rs.3000 surely somebody buying an innova could easily afford.

Hopefully these stolen cars were the ones which did not have immobilisers because believe me just yesterday came across a stolen Toyota innova top end model[v].Why I am so sure the number reads as MH-03 XXX .Now when was it when that series existed.

GM working on its version of the Maruti 800

As I said previously Gm is looking at the A-segment of cars in India seriously and the GM-Daewoo team is working on a sub 1L engine car for markets like India.This car obviously won't be priced at Rs.1 Lakh but is intended for the A-segment more of a rival of the Maruti 800.There is also some talk of a chinese partner for developing this small car.

GM may also launch a new small car in India this year by April to supplement the sales generated by The Spark.Don't know the pricing details about this car but is expected to take on the Hyundai i10.As far as margins,GM expects an impressive number from the recently launched Captiva to help it.It is expecting to sell about 1000 units of these by the end of 2008.

To just give a measure of the demand of small cars in India the Maruti Alto is all set to cross the 1 million magic figure in a week or two.However must say I am very disappointed by the largest manufacturer in India[Maruti] so far.They seem to have lost the plot a bit.While other manufacturers are talking about a new launch every month almost as far as small cars are concerned Maruti seems to be having nothing much to offer to replace its existing fleet which is aging rapidly.

Small car hub alright but what about the infrastructure?

The Indian government is having its way alright and pretty soon we are going to be the hub for small cars with almost every manufacturer making it clear they would be manufacturing cheap hatches here.Some of these even below the 2 lakh price tag.

Even before one such car the Tata Nano is on the roads we have second hand car prices plunging rapidly so much so that in a few years time it would be much more feasible to scrap your old car than looking for a buyer or keeping it.But such a concept seems to be alien in our country.Our country needs a proper guideline as to what we should do with our old cars.

Another neglected area is parking,nothing really is being done to find a solution for the parking woes in our cities.Then comes the Traffic discipline and implementation of rules,more than half of the mess we find on our roads can easily be avoided and the consequences are an ever increasing road accident list apart from the never ending traffic jams even with broad roads and Flyovers.The less we talk about the highway traffic discipline the better.First aid and care for an accident victim is still the stuff of dreams.Our driving test have been left as nothing but a joke.Drunk driving ,speeding,lane cutting,jumping signals,talking on the Mobile/cellphone while driving are all fashionable things to do.

These are just some of the problems from a seemingly endless list about the woes of an Indian driver hopefully the government now looks at these rather than wait for things to go completely out of hand.

Maruti Suzukis replacement for the Maruti 800

Right from the onset ,Tata have made it quite clear that they plan to take on the Maruti 800.So whether it was internal space or mileage it was the Maruti 800 which was on the radar.Even efore the Nano has actually hit the roads the 800 sales are dwindling so it would have been impossible for it to compete with the Nano.

So maruti now are talking about a replacement for the Maruti 800 which would be more oriented towards design,features and quality than actually using price as its USP.According o Sify this new car is code named "YR9" and has a tall boy design[increasing interior space].It is being speculated that this car would have a 660cc engine and Maruti engineers are attempting to better the 20kmpl figure of the Tata Nano.This car would be more expensive than the Nano but may just be a bit cheaper than the present 800 although pricing details not yet known.

Now if you ask me what I think of this strategy,I say brilliant.It is getting too crowded at the bottom of the car buyers pyramid in India and really volume expectations from the manufacturers for this segment is a bit too unrealistic.They are assuming that all of India is going to buy from the A segment of cars.So we will have Tata,Maruti,Bajaj-Renault,Possibly GM with a chinese tie-up but is there actually such a huge market in this segment.Moreover this segment means customers may associate the manufacturer with the mass market tag and not like to associate themselves with the higher end cars from the same manufacturer.Volumes are good but in the end its the Margins that matter after all why did VW move from the People's car manufacturer tag to now a literally Luxury car manufacturer.

What is Maruti Suzuki's USP?

Honda is playing the environment card,Toyota reliability and Skoda luxury[yes that's the tag they are using in India,along with build quality] but what is one term you could associate Maruti Suzuki cars with.Cheap perhaps but competition is fast catching up with the company and soon we will have cheaper cars than even the Maruti 800[Bajaj-Renault,Hyundai,Tata motors].The legendary customer service from Maruti is also taking a hit as indicated by recent surveys.

With rising income levels the cheap cars tag will not really be such an important one,besides when the competition would provide cars for the mainstream market there is a very big risk that consumers would shift over to the more fashionable manufacturers than sticking with Maruti Suzuki ,even if the competition and Maruti Suzuki cars are from different segments.God help Maruti if the competition produce cars of the same segment at about the same price of cars from Maruti and trust me this may no longer be impossible .The other manufacturers are improving their service network and increasing the number of dealerships throughout the country to a very acceptable number that this too should not be a very big problem.

Most importantly many from the next generation aren't particularly looking forward for a Maruti car with the same interest as for some of the other manufacturers.The most common complaint against Maruti cars is that Build quality has not reached the level of these Manufacturers

Maruti only have to look at the US markets where the American manufacturers were the dominant force but within no time has the competition caught up and infact even overtaken them.Hopefully Maruti gets the message soon and pulls up its socks.For starters it needs a good PR campaign.