Maruti offers Rs 90k refund to early buyers of S-Cross


Maruti Suzuki has decided to offer a cash refund of Rs 90,000 to the early buyers of S-Cross 1,600cc variant. The move comes in as a compensation measure after the company slashed price of S-Cross by between Rs 40,000 and Rs 2.05 lakh after a poor response initially.
The bonanza is restricted to only initial buyers of the vehicle as the company had announced the price cut after about one month of its launch on August 4, 2015.
Apart from the cash refund, the company is also offering a two-year extended warranty to buyers, including those who had purchased the 1,300cc variant.
"This is a just a token of gratitude for customers, who showed their faith in us at the start and embraced our new initiatives. S-Cross is a significant milestone for Maruti Suzuki. Through this, we created the premium crossover category in India. We launched our new retail channel Nexa," a company spokesperson said. "Without the support and confidence of these early adopters last year, we could never have achieved success in these new initiatives."
The company has managed sales of 23,000 units of S-Cross since its launch. Company officials said demand of the vehicle has increased after the price correction.
The addition of Baleno compact to the Nexa retail format has also helped in getting a higher visibility for the model as showroom traffic has increased.
The S-Cross had originally been launched with a price tag of Rs 8.34-13.74 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Car Sales in India during February 2016

The month of February 2016 has not been a very kind one on the passenger car segment. Most of the car makers have experienced a slowdown in sales with many treading in the negative territory.

Maruti Suzuki India, which holds the top four positions in the top 10 cars list, barely stayed in the positive with just 0.2 percent growth. Three of the top four models from Maruti saw their sales decline. It's compact sedan Dzire, which was the second highest selling car in February with sales of 17,410, was the only Maruti car in the list which saw its sales increase compared to February 2015.



The highest selling car was its entry segment hatchback Alto which sold 21,286 units in the month, a sharp 17 percent fall over the sales in February last year. The other two cars in the top four are Swift and Wagon-R. Swift was at the third position with sales of 15,475 and the Wagon-R managed to hold on to fourth by selling 14,209 which is a percent less than last year.

Maruti's other cars which are in the list include Baleno and Ciaz. The premium hatchback Baleno was launched in October 2015 and since then has performed well for the company. In February, Baleno Sold 6,888 units and secured eighth position in the top ten list.

The executive sedan from Maruti, Ciaz made a quiet comeback into the list despite its sales falling 5 percent as compared to Feb last year. Ciaz was was among the top ten selling cars in the month of November 2015. Ciaz sold 5,162 units in February 2016.

The biggest representation in the list after Maruti was from India's second largest car manufacturer by Volume, Hyundai. The company had three cars in the list positioned at fifth, sixth and ninth positions.

The best performer for Hyundai was Grand i10 which has been giving tough competition to the likes of Maruti Swift and Ford Figo. Grand i10 was the only other car other than Dzire to see its sales grow compared to the performance in February of 2015. The car sold 8,898 units last month, which was a 2 percent increase.

Grand i10 was closely followed by Hyundai's i20 at sixth position with a sales of 8,419 units. This is a steep fall of 18 percent from the previous tally of 10,264 units sold in the corresponding month last year. i20 sales have been dented to a large extent due to Maruti's Baleno.

The biggest hit among the top ten selling cars, percentage fall wise, was taken by Hyundai's Eon which saw a 23 percent reduction in the total unit sales in the month of February. Eon was only able to sell 5,539 last month as compared to 7,200 in February 2015.

However, the standout entry in the list has to be the Renault Kwid for being the only non-Maruti or non-Hyundai car. Kwid has been among the top performers in the industry and also for Renault. The car, which was launched in September 2015, singlehandedly helped Renault post a heady sales growth of 158 percent and that too in a slow market. Renault sold a total of 7,544 units in February 2016.

(Source: Economic Times)

Secondary research.