Global Car Majors to Imitate Maruti Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki can call it a major success of its policy. Global car majors are taking cues from the Indian car giant for their future launches. They want to imitate Maruti Suzuki's procedure to have a hatchback and sedan variants of the same model- Swift.

Both models have been hugely successful in the Indian car industry. Currently, the sedan variant Swift D'Zire sold 60,000 units in the last fiscal year. The Swift hatch has recorded sale of 3 lakh units in less than five years. D'Zire has a minimum delivery period of two months and the hatch has a waiting period of three months, owing to high demand

Now, international players want to imitiate the strategy with their own models. Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda and Ford Motors are planning to use similar technologies for hatchback and sedans in future for the Indian car market.

Toyota Motors plan to adopt the twin hatchback-sedan policy for its upcoming small car. Talking about the strategy, the deputy managing director for marketing Mr. Sundeep Singh said "The hatchback will be positioned in the premium segment for customers who want to upgrade from entry-level cars. The sedan will be positioned for the premium mid-size sedan segment." Toyota plans to bring in the small car Yaris for India by 2010. The same platform will be used to develop a sedan.

Honda Motors will launch two different cars based on the same platform. This includes the upcoming Jazz, a premium small car was developed using the City platform.

Volkswagen's latest offering Polo will be available initially as a small car and later as a sedan. The sedan will join the ranks with its brethren -the Passat and Jetta sedans. Volkswagen has clarified that the two bodystyles are being developed exclusively for Indian car market. Both models will feature the name Polo. Volkswagen wants to avoid cutting into the market share of Skoda Fabia and will position the Polo hatch in other segments, said Volkswagen India President and managing director Mr. Jorg Muller. Polo is likely to hit the Indian roads by the end of this year. The new small car form Ford Motors is likely to have an additional seven variants for the Indian car market.