Maruti Suzuki to relaunch power-packed SX4

NEW DELHI:


NEW DELHI: Passenger car leader Maruti Suzuki India has stopped manufacturing its most expensive car SX4, the mid-sized sedan, reinforcing the

widely-held belief that the small car leader does not have the expertise to make and market big cars.

Maruti will relaunch SX4 within a fortnight with a new 1.6-litre engine which will have a much higher pick-up. It will be more expensive than the current top-end Zxi variant, which comes at Rs 7.5 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Maruti will also rope in Bollywood star John Abraham as the new brand ambassador for the sporty model to arrest falling sales.

SX4 was launched in May 2007 in three manual variants to counter Honda City but could not compete with Honda’s superior technology and brand image. SX4 steered ahead of the City and clocked top sales of over 3,000 cars per month in the first three months of its launch but soon lost speed when Honda launched the third-generation City in November 2008. SX4 sales are now confined to a few hundred units per month.

Honda has sold 37,600 of the new City till August 2009 since its launch (November 2008) while Maruti has sold only 9,763 SX4s in the same period. Despite being cheaper than the City by over a lakh, SX4 trailed by a huge margin last fiscal too, selling only 13,976 cars against City’s 38,200 cars. The new SX4 will have an additional automatic variant, another first for any sedan from Maruti.

It will deliver 165-175 newton metres of power, much higher then the outgoing model and will meet the latest emission norms. When contacted the company spokesman refused to confirm the development. “We do not talk about future launches and product refreshments. However, any product refreshment is an integral part of our marketing strategy to maintain excitement and meet customer’s aspirations.”

Analyst tracking the sector said that by fully loading the new car, Maruti is making another attempt to prove that it can make all kinds of cars. “Maruti Suzuki is a good brand but its Japanese peers Honda and Toyota appeal more to customers when it comes to buying big cars. SX4 performed better than Maruti’s other big car Baleno and initially even overtook City in sales.

However, it failed to maintain the momentum after Honda responded with a new and more powerful Honda City. Probably, Maruti is now looking for answers to challenge the mid-size car segment,” Kapil Arora, partner at Ernst & Young said.

Another top executive of the auto industry said just as Maruti has not been able to establish itself as a big car maker, similarly global car maker Honda has not being able to sell its small car Jazz, which sells less than 1,000 units per month compared with its closest competitor Maruti Swift that sells over 5,000 cars per month.

ET

Maruti plans KB Series engines for entry level, A segment cars

CHENNAI:
CHENNAI: The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki is mulling changing all engines in its range of entry level and A-plus segment cars to the latest KB Series engine which it unveiled last year, a top company executive said.

Currently, the new series of engines is being used in the latest models of the Maruti stable - Estilo, Ritz and the 'A' Star.

Asked whether all the entry level cars would be equipped with the KB Series engine, Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava told PTI that it could happen over a period of time.

"It will not happen immediately. We cannot do that. It will happen over a period of time", he said.

The KB Series engine, a part of the company's efforts to offer the latest technology to customers, is produced from the KB Series engine plant at Gurgaon.

The all new, light-weight, engine series will be progressively introduced in other models over a period of next 3-5 years.

The KB engine plant at Gurgaon has an installed annual capacity of 240,000 engines.

To a query on investments proposed, he said, "we have to wait till the end of October. The whole project would come to the Board by October and after that we have to decide how to go forward. So we have to wait till the end of October to know what the investment is and what will come".

Maruti Suzuki India last year said it would shift production from a plant at the Gurgaon factory in Haryana, to the factory at Manesar, 25 km to its south, also in the same state.

The plant at the Gurgaon facility will be gradually changed to a base for engine assembly and machining, while the automobile assembly will be integrated at Manesar.

On the impact of the global meltdown, Bhargava said there were signs of recovery but cautioned that no body has said recovery has happened so far. "There are signs of recovery. It looks like recovery is happening but still nobody is saying that recovery has happened. That is our problem. Until recovery happens I can't tell you how confident we are".

Responding to a query on vehicle sales, he said, "it is always smooth (for us) so far and I hope it continues to be smooth. I can't predict that it will be on the same path. It may happen, it may not".

Stating that Maruti's strengths were its reach across the country, Bhargava said, "I think Maruti's strength is in that area in terms of reach to customers and our ability to provide service to customers at reasonable rates all over the country. That is what makes us generally to do better than any other (car) company".

He said September and October were always good months for Maruti and hoped that it would be continued to be so.
ET