Maruti Suzuki India Limited, India's largest passenger car maker, has introduced two of its flagship models, Alto 800 hatchback and Swift DZire compact sedan, in the auto market of Philippines. It must be noted that buyers in Philippines have developed a penchant for small cars, which lured the interest of the Indian auto maker, resulting in the launch of its two iconic models in the region. Sources close to the development process revealed that if both the models performed well in numbers, it will reduce the pressure on Indian operations of the company, which is currently witnessing not so favourable times in the country.
Speaking on the development, the President of Suzuki Philippines Inc, Satoshi Uchida was quoted as saying, “We are bringing the all-new Alto 800 and the Swift DZire to the Philippines in line with our commitment to deliver great value cars to the local market. With these latest additions to our line up, we hope to bring more powerful and pleasant driving experiences to our Filipino customers.”
In auto market of Philippines, the Alto 800 has been offered with a base price of P388,000, around Rs. 5.38 lakh, whereas the Swift DZire has been tagged with a price of P568,000, close to Rs. 6.08 lakh. In order to lure buyers, Alto 800 has been offered in two colour options, namely White and Silver, while the Swift DZire is available in Silver, Blue, Gray and White colours.
Reportedly, these two new models will join the fleet of Suzuki cars in Indonesia like Swift hatch, SX4 Crossover, Grand Vitara, Jimny, Kizashi, A-Star. Interestingly, all these models are performing well in the region. Speaking on the future projects of the company, Satoshi further said that the auto maker is aiming to two-fold its sales and expand its market share to almost 6 per cent. According to him, the company is stringently working towards offering quality products to the Filipino customers, of which one of the live examples is Alto 800.
Currently, the company has introduced only manual transmission option within both the models. In a few couple of months, it has plans of introducing an automatic gearbox variant of Swift DZire. In the Indian auto market, the Swift DZire has been titled as the country's highest selling passenger car. However, the sales of the model has been affected a bit with the recent launch of Honda Amaze.
