India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) on Thursday said that it has sold over 40 lakh units of its entry level car Alto.

"Alto has been ranked as the No 1 selling car in India for 16th year in a row and we are immensely proud to announce another remarkable milestone of 40 lakh cumulative sales. This has become a sales record never achieved by any other Indian car," MSIL Executive Director (Marketing & Sales) Shashank Srivastava was quoted by a news agency as saying.

He added that over the years, the brand Alto has established a strong emotional connect with the customers.

In a statement, MSIL said that Alto has been its most selling car for 16 consecutive years in India.

"Alto is the preferred choice of Indian car buyers with 76 per cent of Alto customers choosing it as their first car," the statement read further.

"Alto is India's first entry level car to become BS-VI compliant coupled with the latest crash and pedestrian safety regulation," it added.

Maruti Suzuki Alto was launched in September 2000. It comes with a fuel efficiency of 22.05 km/l for petrol and 31.56 km/kg for CNG. The ex-showroom price in Delhi currently start at Rs 2.95 lakh and goes up till Rs 4.36 lakh.