India's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki, just gets stronger with 50% of market share being reported on the local soil by the end of this fiscal year. As per official figures for April - February period, the markets share for Maruti Suzuki stood at up 49.8% as against 49.5% noted in April - January period, and 49.3% in the April - December period. Moreover, reports state that Maruti Suzuki has attained a 42% market share in the passenger vehicle segment during April – February period as against 40.6% recorded in April-September period.
Speaking more about the recent development, Mayank Pareek, Maruti's chief operating officer-marketing and sales, said, "In the car segment, Maruti's market share is just short of 50% which is the highest in the last 4-5 years. We have gained 4.3% in this segment over last year and in 7 out of 11 months of this financial year, our market share has been nearly 50%. So far this fiscal, overall the car industry declined 4.6% but we are up 4.5%
The Indian car-maker has recently created a stir in the Indian hatchback segment with the launch of the Celerio hatchback. The Celerio comes with EZDrive technology which is a comfortable replacement of the manual shift. The hatchback claims to be highly fuel efficient and delivers an impressive fuel efficiency figure of 23.1 kmpl. MD and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa, Maruti Suzuki India, said, “Given the congestion on Indian roads, the demand for auto mode is no brainer. Presently, cars with automatic transmission are less than 5 percent. Celerio will cater to a growing demand for vehicles with automatic gear shift at an affordable price.” Speaking more about the company's strong footing in the local market, Mayank Pareek said, “Smaller/ rural markets - with populations of less than 10,000 people have shown a 14-15% growth. In November 2012, diesel comprised 62% of all passenger vehicle sales while petrol was just 38%. This year diesel is down to 52% while petrol is up to 48%. This decline in diesel has helped us.”
