India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki's stronghold is the small car segment. Its car models such as the Alto, Swift and the Swift DZire are best selling models not only for the company but also in the country. Despite being top sellers, Maruti Suzuki Alto, Swift and the Swift DZire have recorded decline in sales in the first five month of financial year 2016-17 over the same period in the last fiscal.
The best selling hatchback, the Alto range, saw a decline of 16 percent in sales in this financial year from April-August, reports ET Auto. Similarly, sales of Swift and Swift Dzire also declined 28 percent and 21 percent in April-August period, respectively.
The main reason for decline in sales is due to the competition with the arrival of new models. In entry level hatchback segment, Renault India launched Kwid in October 2015. The pseudo-SUVish hatchback received overwhelming response with over 1.65 lakh bookings. The sales of Kwid from January 2016 increased months after months. At the same time, Alto's sales dropped consistently. This makes it clear that new models are eating in to the sales of Alto.
In the case of Swift, it was after the launch of Baleno that sales started to drop. Though Maruti Suzuki repeatedly says the Baleno success didn't hampered Swift's sales, sales data of the manufacturer says from average monthly sales of 17,800 units, Swift sales declined to 13,252 units per month.
For the first time in many years, the Dzire sedan, which figured in top three consistently, has dropped down to the fifth position in August sales list of passenger vehicles. The carmaker sold 12,780 units in August 2016 compared to 15,546 units in the same month last year.
