Here’s how Maruti Ciaz changed the game for the entire Auto sector

Maruti, graduating over the success of its hatchback range and concentrating on sedan has proved to be the game changer in the automobile ambit of the country. The new kid in the block, Ciaz has turned many heads through its journey over 4 months.
India's home-grown carmaker by volumes has seen its Ciaz mid-size sedan, crossing sale of 50,000 units in just 8 months. Ciaz is Maruti's third attempt to make a dent in a segment dominated by its Japanese peer Honda Korean maker Hyundai, as per a news report in The Economic Times.

Maruti faced two setbacks in the mid-size car segment in the last decade with the failure of Baleno and SX4. Ciaz, altered the script. In the first month of its launch itself Ciaz overtook its South Korean rival Hyundai Verna.

Ciaz is now nibbling away from the segment leader Honda City, which continues to main strong lead with an average sales of 8000 to 9000 units.
Since the launch, the company sold 43,000 units in the domestic market and 9,000 units have been shipped overseas.

Of the 43,000 units of Ciaz sold in the domestic market, 65% of them are existing Maruti SuzukiBSE 2.30 % customers, who have upgraded to the mid-size sedan and almost half or 33% of them were existing Swift and Dzire customers.

Clearly, Ciaz enabled Maruti get incremental sales but more importantly for the company it helped them retain customers who were graduating to bigger cars.

In its bread and butter compact car space, 71% of Maruti Suzuku customers move to another Maruti car and 29% customers migrate from competition.

(Image: Reuters)