King Off The Road: Maruti pips M&M to take top spot in utility vehicles in FY18

Maruti Suzuki India sold more utility vehicles (UVs) than Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) in 2017-18 to emerge the top player in the domestic passenger vehicles market with a share of 50%. Its share in 2016-17 was 47.4%.

Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data released on Tuesday showed Maruti’s total sales of UVs in 2017-18 was 253,759 units, giving it a market share of 27.53% up from 25.7% in 2016-17.

In a first, the Japanese company notched up sales of over 1.5 million units across all products. At 1.65 million units, volumes were up 15% over 2016-17, a pace that was nearly twice as high as the passenger vehicle (PV) segment growth rate.

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Although it has been a late entrant to the segment, products like the Ertiga, Brezza and S-Cross have been popular. M&M, which has for long ruled the UV segment, sold 233,915 units in 2017-18, commanding a share of 25.38%, smaller than the share of 29.20% in 2016-17.

Tata Motors, whose Tiago and Nexon proved popular, improved market share in the PV segment to 5.71% in 2017-18 from 5.03% in 2016-17.

However, South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor India, the country’s second largest passenger vehicle manufacturer which has not come out with too many new products in recent years, saw its market share decline to 16.31% in FY18 from 16.73% a year earlier. M&M, which too has not seen its new models click, also lost market share to 7.69% from 7.78% a year ago.

In the two-wheeler segment, a substantial gap still exists between the market leader Hero MotoCorp with total sales of 7,587,130 units in FY18 and challenger Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) at 5,775,243. However, the former’s market share declined to 37.57% from 37.89% a year earlier, while the latter’s market share increased to 28.60% from last year’s 26.87%. Bajaj Auto not only saw a yearly decline of 1% in domestic motorcycle sales, its market share also declined to 9.77% from 11.37% last year.

Both Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland grew smartly and commanded market shares of 46.65% (45.55%) and 20.43% (20.32%), respectively in commercial vehicles. The overall commercial vehicle segment reported growth of 20% in FY18.

By Arun Nayal and Shweta Bhanot Mehrotra