New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Monday unveiled the all-new Dzire in an attempt to revive growth in the compact sedan segment of the country’s car market.
The all-new Maruti Suzuki Dzire will be launched on 16 May and deliveries will commence immediately thereafter. The carmaker has so far sold 13.81 lakh units of the model in India since its launch in March 2008.
The sub-four metre compact sedan segment, in which the Dzire is the leader, has witnessed decline in sales over the last couple of years.
In 2016-17, the compact sedan segment clocked 402,608 units as against 440,735 units in 2015-16, down 8.65%. Sales on the Dzire declined 14.67%—2,34,242 units to 199,878 units—over the same period. Despite the decline, the model accounted for 50% of the total sales in the segment.
“Due to capacity constraints we had to adjust production of certain models, including Dzire, in order to reduce long waiting period of models like Baleno and Vitara Brezza,” R.S. Kalsi, executive director (sales and marketing) at Maruti Suzuki India said Monday.
With additional capacity of 1.5 lakh units available for this fiscal from Suzuki’s Gujarat plant, Kalsi said the pressure will ease and it will benefit models such as the Dzire.
“We have 50% market share in the compact sedan segment, where Dzire is present, and with the launch of next generation edition we are looking to maintain the sales momentum,” Kalsi said.
Last week, Hyundai Motors India Pvt. Ltd had launched an upgraded version of Xcent that competes with Dzire. Tata Motors has also introduced its Tigor. Besides these, the new Dzire will also compete with Honda Amaze, Ford Aspire and Volkswagen Ameo.
All these models are priced in the range of Rs4.7 lakh to Rs8.41 lakh.
“Inspite of the competition, we have been doing the numbers (for Dzire). We are sure that with the new edition, we will surpass the earlier numbers and would also certainly help the market grow,” Kalsi said.
Commenting on the upcoming model, Maruti’s executive director (R&D) C.V. Raman said the new Dzire has been developed on 5th generation “Heartect” platform, which helps in weight reduction and improve frame rigidity. The new Dzire also meets frontal, side and pedestrian safety norms that will start kicking in from October this year, he added.
“It is the sixth model from Maruti which meets safety regulations ahead of time,” Raman said.
The new Dzire would be mainly produced at the company’s Manesar facility. The present generation Dzire would now be sold as Dzire Tour to the fleet operators with the launch of the updated version in May, Raman added.
The Dzire would be launched with a 1.2 litre petrol engine and a 1.3 litre diesel powertrain. It would also feature auto-gear shift transmission in both petrol and diesel options.
In 2016-17, the Dzire came third among the top 10 best selling list of passenger vehicles. It was the second best selling model among the passenger vehicles in 2015-16. Last full model change of the Dzire happened in February 2012.