Maruti races ahead in car sales in Indonesia

According to market figures, Maruti's Zen Estilo has garnered a staggering 60-70 percent market share within months of its launch. Chery Automobile's QQ is the second largest selling car in Indonesia with 12 percent market share, followed by Kia Motor's Picanto with 8 percent and Hyundai's Atos with 6 percent.

The company, which is focused on catering to the non-European markets like Morocco, Algeria, Sri Lanka, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Chile, said that its compact car Zen Estilo has received an order for 12,000 units from Indonesia. Zen Estilo was launched in Indonesia in May this year and Maruti has already sold 5,500 units in the South-East Asian country so far.

"The consistent demand for Zen Estilo comes from its 'Tall Boy' design. It resembles a mini-SUV, which are in great demand in Philippines. We already have a 12,000 units strong order from our distributor, PT Indomobil Suzuki International, for this fiscal," business newspaper Economic Times quoted Maruti Suzuki managing director Jagdish Khattar as saying.

According to a company spokesman, Maruti plans to ship 1,000 units of the model every month to Indonesia to meet the demands of the market.

"The Indonesian small car market is small, while the overall auto market there is dominated by SUVs. However, with the launch of Estilo since a few months back, we have been able to capture about 60 percent of the compact car market," the company spokesman said.

"Of late we have focused on non-European markets. It has grown by over 65 percent in Middle-East, Africa, South Asia and South America," a company official said, adding that in August the company clocked a total exports of 5,739 units, as against 2000 units in the corresponding month a year ago.

The official added that the company has also raised its export target to 55,000 units from 50,000 units.

Maruti has set an export target of around 2,20,000 units by 2010 and hopes to capture new markets like the UAE with its best selling small car Alto. The company has a strong presence in Chile and Egypt where it has already sold 7000 units and 4000-5000 units respectively.

Besides Zen Estilo and Alto, Maruti is also exporting another model, Wagon R, to the non-European markets where it has already notched up huge sales.