Looking forward to becoming number one and dominating the SUV space: Shashank Srivastava, Maruti Suzuki

"So, while we have the Brezza, but we also have the Fronx now which is for the urban, sophisticated, technology savvy consumers, but there is also a niche segment which has developed which is the segment of lifestyle SUV and that is what the Jimny caters to," says Shashank Srivastava, Maruti Suzuki.

Let's talk about your market share in non-SUV and SUV market segment.
If you talk about the non-SUV market, Maruti’s market share is about 65%, but when you combine it with SUV where our market share last year was about 12.5%, then it falls down to under 42% or around that figure.

Obviously, when we have set ourselves a target of achieving 50% market share, we need to increase the market share in SUVs. And when we talk of SUVs, then it is the entry SUV, the compact SUV which is the largest segment within the SUV sector, so SUV, by the way, of the overall market is now about 45% of the market and 23% is the entry SUV.
And in the entry SUV, the compact SUV, we find as it has become larger. Last year it was almost 8,60,000 or so volumes. We have seen a development of new sub-segments.

So, while we have the Brezza, but we also have the Fronx now which is for the urban, sophisticated, technology savvy consumers, but there is also a niche segment which has developed which is the segment of lifestyle SUV and that is what the Jimny caters to.

You could say and argue that the volumes may not be very large, expected volumes, there is only one vehicle in that segment so far, but the image rub off which this segment gives, because it has got those pure SUV code and the legacy of Jimny is very well known and that is why I believe it is one of the most important models in our SUV portfolio which now includes not only the Brezza, but also the Grand Vitara, the Fronx and now the Jimny.

So, talking about the units again, you said it is not going to be high numbers, but still if you can give us a ballpark figure, what kind of estimates you have as far as production is concerned, what kind of bookings you have received so far for this?
Yes, so as it happens in all new products that we launch, we do not have a particular volume in mind, but we see essentially how the booking responses and then fine tune our production accordingly. The bookings which we have received so far has been, I think, really good. We have so far booking of almost 30,000 units for the Jimny and I think that is a great beginning and once we announce the price and start selling the vehicle, which will happen sometime in the first week of June, I think we will get a real picture of what the volumes would be and accordingly we will tweak our production going forward.

What kind of overall SUV play you want to see, you want to come and do in India, because there are competitors like Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata is there, almost every car maker has an SUV, you started a bit late but you have a wide area of products, but how do you see this overall SUV portfolio when it comes to premiumness and margins?
Yes, so certainly it is a very competitive market as you said, out of the about 95 brands which are there in the auto industry, passenger vehicle industry, 46 are in the SUV space and as you would have seen most of the recent launches from both our competitors, including also from Maruti Suzuki has been in the SUV space, that is because the volumes are great, last year this segment was almost 16.5 lakh units, so it obviously attracts a lot of manufacturers who come into this segment and yes that is one of the reasons why we would like to dominate this segment also and we have said before that we would like to be number one in this space also, like we are number one in the hatch space, we have a market share of more than 70%, we have 50% plus market share in the MPV, we have 95% in the van space, this is the SUV space where we are lagging behind and therefore I think we are looking forward to dominating and becoming number one in this segment also.

But at one side you are seeing waiting list on many cars and other side you are launching new products, do not you want to put that production capacity into meeting the aspirations of customers or do you feel bad about customers going to competition, maybe some are staying with you and what are you doing to bring down the waiting list of the cars?
Logically what you are saying is right but it is not as simple. So you have lines which are dedicated to particular models and brands like Ertiga for example where we are having a long waiting days or Brezza for example and that is largely because of the shortfall in production because of the semiconductor component availability.

Now even if you were not to introduce new products, let us say like the Jimny, it is not going to enhance the volumes of those other models which are in waiting. So our product plan therefore which is planned much in advance will continue as it is. This Jimny for example is made in Gurgaon whereas let us say the Fronx is made in Gujarat. So there is no one off one on one sort of adjustment that we can make and that is why we believe in the long run it is better to have a definitive product plan which should address the segments which have grown and which are growing and that is what we are trying to do with the Jimny and the Fronx as well.

And due to semiconductor shortage are you prioritising certain models over others to somehow move that shortage also?
So it does call for a lot of adjustment in production volumes, especially when we are in short supply for such products like the Ertiga, the XL6, the Brezza which are in much greater demand and that is why today our pending bookings are close to 400,000.

But at the same time we also have to see and increase the volume in other segments and that is what we are trying to do with some of our other models like the WagonR, the Alto, the Celerio and so on and so forth.

So it is actually a sort of balancing that you need to do with the overall volume objective but you also need to bring down the waiting periods for some of the models which are in short supply.

At the moment we are finding that a little difficult because the semiconductor availability is still not so great. In fact last year we lost 170,000 units of production because of the semiconductor. It has been a similar situation in April and May of this year. Hopefully from quarter two we will see much better availability of the semiconductor components.