For the first time in last 7 years Maruti Alto has been moved to second position in terms of sales. Alto’s bigger brother Swift has overtaken the former selling 19.484 units as compared to Alto’s 17,842 units. Maruti Alto managed to sell 20,000 units every month from past 4-5 years. In fact Alto sold 32,000 units in March 2012.
The greater demand for Swift is mainly due to its diesel variant. 80% of Swift sold are diesel variant and why not, the Swift gives a very good mileage of 20 Kmpl and has good performance too. At price point, it is the cheapest car in its segment which include Fiat Punto, Hyundai i20, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Micra and Skoda Fabia.
Maruti Alto though being easy to drive has a disadvantage of only petrol and diesel option. Also the launch of Tata Nano and Hyundai Eon has made Alto sales drop down and not to forget the ageing design. Couple of months ago a new car with Alto name plate was found testing in New Delhi which looked almost like the A Star. It is still not clear weather Maruti will replace the aging Alto with the new one.
In spite of labour issues Maruti Suzuki has managed to bring down the Swift bookings to 4 months from earlier 7-9 months. We will have to wait and see for how much time the Swift is going to stay at the number one place.
