India’s largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki has displaced Tata Motors to become the third largest utility vehicle manufacturer in India. The company’s share in the utility vehicle segment in the Indian auto market has increased by almost 8 times to 16.7 percent with the launch of its multi-utility vehicle Ertiga LUV in April 2012.
Although the company has two other models the Gypsy and the Grand Vitara in the utility segment, the increase in sales in the segment has been led by the Ertiga taking the cumulative sales for the month of April and May 2012 to 13,327 units in comparison to 1,317 units in the same period in 2011.
Maruti Suzuki launched the Ertiga with the plan of manufacturing 5,000 units of the car model every month and is currently manufacturing 6,000 units instead. Moreover, with the increase in demand for diesel cars as a result of the hike in petrol price, the diesel version of the Ertiga has been receiving higher bookings creating long waiting periods for delivery.