Maruti Suzuki India on Wednesday introduced the all-new Celerio, starting at ₹4.99 lakh. This is the first car in the company’s portfolio to be powered by the K-Series Engine, which Maruti Suzuki said helps the new Celerio to give a mileage of 26.68 km/litre.
“India is now the fifth-largest car market globally and Maruti Suzuki is proud to contribute nearly half of this...If we have to grow the Indian market further, we have to pay special attention to the volume segment,” the company’s MD and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa said.
He added that India is primarily a small car market, with hatchbacks contributing close to 46% of total passenger vehicle sales. “All-new Celerio with the K10 C engine is the most fuel-efficient petrol car in the Indian passenger car segment... Together with teams at Suzuki Motor Corporation, our engineers have achieved major fuel efficiency improvement ranging from 15% to 23% across variants over the outgoing Celerio,” he said.
The manual trims are priced between ₹4.99 lakh and ₹6.44 lakh while the AGS (auto gear shift) variants are tagged between ₹6.13 lakh and ₹6.94 lakh.
In an interaction with The Hindu , Mr Ayukawa acknowledged that the company had been a “little behind” in product development as far as SUVs were concerned, but expressed confidence that the company’s products would be able to attract new consumers to small cars.
“Of course people say our SUV segment is limited and we need more SUVs. That is true... That is why we are planning and have started developing [SUVs],” he said.
On supply constraints, he added that there may be shortage of electronic components in the short term, however, the situation is expected to improve gradually.
MSI senior executive director (Marketing and Sales) Shashank Srivastava added that the new model would help the company consolidate its position in the hatchback segment, in which it has 66% market share.
“One in two cars sold in the country right now are hatchbacks...Celerio has played a stellar role in enhancing the company’s market share in the hatchback segment over the years,” he said, adding that the company had sold more than 5.9 lakh Celerio vehicles since its introduction in 2014.
