South has always shown the way for early adoption of a new technology or brand. The latest success story is the sale of cars powered by automatic manual transmission (AMT) or auto gear shift (AGS) technology.
Country’s top car maker Maruti, which is now selling higher number of AGS-powered cars in the country, has seen Southern market exceeding the national average demand for its AMT variants. Maruti has been selling AGS technology in two of its models - Celerio and Alto K-10 (entry level cars).
When compared with the average demand of 35 per cent for AMT cars in the country, South has registered a demand of 50 per cent or more for Maruti. It means that if Maruti had sold about a lakh units of Celerio (which offers AGS and petrol variants. Diesel has just been launched) across in the country in a year, the average demand for AMT version was 35 per cent pan-India. But in south, AMT-variants accounted for half of the total sales of Celerio in the region.
In Bangalore, the sales of AMT variants are as high as 56 per cent. Other cities are also doing well with Kochi seeing AMT demand at 53 per cent, Hyderabad at 47 per cent, and Chennai at 45 per cent.
“South traditionally has higher incidence of international exposure. Whether in gulf (Kerala) or the U.K. / the U.S. for Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Cochin and even small towns. As a result, their awareness and buying to automotive technologies which offer convenience are higher having lived or visited abroad,” a spokesperson of Maruti told The Hindu.
Now, the traction is more in urban cities where there is bumper-to-bumper traffic. Besides being easy to drive, it is a boon in stop-go city traffic conditions. Combine with the fact that it is affordable and does not compromise on fuel efficiency, this technology has found wide appeal.
Maruti claimed that its recent internal surveys reported to found that 40-50 per cent of prospective buyers were willing to pay up to Rs.40,000 more for an AMT car. Also, customers didn’t want any compromise on fuel efficiency.
“Maruti’s AGS models offer three distinct attributes — it’s affordable, does not compromise with fuel efficiency and big relief in city stop go city traffic conditions. This has made it a popular choice across India,” he added,
Of course, AMT is not new to India. In mid-Nineties, it was called as AT (automatic transmission). However, due to three major issues customers stayed away from buying AT cars. First, they were highly priced (it used to be at least about a lakh of rupees than normal variant). Second, lower fuel efficiency and third issued was relating to maintenance and serviceability.
But, now AMT technology has addressed those problems. Cost of AMT variant is just Rs.40,000 more, fuel efficiency is almost the same and maintenance is unlikely be an issue.
“Compared to fully automatic versions, the AMT technology appears to be working as a better value proposition for customers considering the relatively smaller price premium to the manual variants (compared to automatic Vs manual) as also relatively lower maintenance costs vis-a-vis conventional automatic cars,” said Subrata Ray, Group Vice President – Corporate Ratings, Icra.
FY | Auto Gear Shift ( On Celerio & Alto K10) | Automatic( On DZire, Ritz & Ciaz) | Total |
2014-15 | 30,000 | 2300 units | 32,300 units |
2013-14 | 2800 ( Celerio AGS launched in Feb 2014) | 2500 units | 5300 units |
