India’s biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s 23 year old war horse Wagon R has emerged as the best selling car in India in fiscal 2022 as the Japanese firm monopolised the top 5 positions with its range of small cars. It may run contrary to the narrative of SUVs being all the rage in India but also displays the dominance Maruti enjoys in the affordable low frills segments.
The tall boy car recorded a healthy 18 percent growth in sales at 188,838 units, achieving its best ever tally in a fiscal in the process. It displaced Swift, which had ended Alto’s 16 year dominance at the top in fiscal 2021, to the second spot with a marginal 3 percent decline at 1,67,827 units while premium hatchback Baleno was the third largest selling car at 1,46,183 units, down 10.6 percent over last fiscal. Alto was down at number four with sales of 1,45,167 units, its lowest tally in a year since 2004-05.
“Sales of Wagon R have been boosted due to CNG which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the numbers,” said Shashank Srivastava, executive director, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. “All the top five best selling cars in India are small cars which indicates their importance in the market even with all the noise around SUVs.”
The other model that reaped the benefit of CNG was the Ertiga which recorded an over 30 percent jump in sales at 1,17,150 units, which enabled it to break into the top 10.
“The demand for CNG version is really strong. So much so that even though we want to offer more models with CNG, we are not able to because we are unable to fully the demand for existing models itself,” Srivastava added.
Bestselling cars 2021-22
With semiconductor chip shortage continuing to impact production and the popular models enjoying waiting periods running upto months, the annual figures may not necessarily reflect the actual demand for a model in the market. Yet, one model stands out. Tata’s compact SUV–Nexon, saw its sales almost double to 1,24,130 units to become not only the 6th largest selling model in the country but also the highest selling SUV. It also meant a re-entry of Tata Motors in the top 10 after a 9 year hiatus. The last time a Tata model featured in this list was the Indica way back in 2012-13.”As the consumer trend is transitioning towards SUVs, we are noticing that our portfolio is growing much stronger and Nexon, since its launch, has been pivotal in accelerating our growth in the SUV segment,” said Shailesh Chandra, President, passenger vehicle business unit, Tata Motors. “Today’s millennial buyers bring in a higher level of consciousness around safety as well as the environment. Nexon, as a brand, has resonated well with these buyers. With the 5-star Global NCAP ratings, it has created benchmarks in the segment. With the Nexon EV, we have also diversified our offering and have been successful in creating a niche in the segment.”
Maruti Suzuki accounted for a record 8 models in the top 10 while Tata and Hyundai (Creta) had one entry each. The two cars to drop out of the top 10 from last fiscal year were the Hyundai Grand i10 Nios and Venue.
“Infact the market is less consolidated in fiscal 2022 than earlier. In the previous fiscal, the top 20 cars accounted for 74 percent of overall sales while in fiscal 2022, that number has dropped to 68 percent,” Srivastava added. “It could also be a factor of supply side shortages as the more popular models have a longer waiting period.”
Overall industry volumes passenger vehicles stood at around 2.97 million in fiscal 2021-22, a growth of 9.6 percent, but still significantly below the peak of 3.38 million units of 2018-19. Maruti had earlier said it expected sales to breach the fiscal 2019 levels in 2022-23. The possibility of a new model emerging as the leader of the pack cannot be ruled out either.
Car production is expected to be affected for the rest of 2022 because of the semiconductor supply crunch. For the two-wheeler segment, the rural recovery is still remote and the market for commuter motorcycles is yet to recover from the second COVID wave. Meanwhile, the commercial vehicle and the tractor segments are showing some signs of recovery.
