As per new data released by automotive insights and analytics provider, Jato Dynamics India, SUVs accounted for nearly 34% of all passenger car sales in the first quarter of the calendar year 2021. While customers and the automotive industry in general are going head over heels over new SUVs, they were still not the best selling vehicle body type in the country in the first quarter of 2021. Would you like to take a guess for what was the best selling body type then? Well, it were the good old hatchbacks.
As per data provided by Jato India, which measured sales contribution based on vehicle body type, it was found that hatchbacks continue to lead the pack, accounting for nearly 42% of total passenger car sales. Meanwhile, sedans and MPVs contributed 12% each to the total passenger vehicle sales in the Q1 of 2021. Despite hatchbacks being the best selling body type in India, we have not had a single new hatchback launch in the country in the first quarter of 2021. SUVs, meanwhile, kept pouring in.
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In fact, we saw quite a few major SUV launches with the likes of the Tata Safari, Renault Kiger and Citroen C5 Aircross. Jato Dynamics India also says that car manufacturers in India are gearing up to launch at least 10 more SUVs this year. That's because the demand for the SUV body style is constantly growing. Some of the major SUV launches lined up in the months ahead include - Skoda Kushaq, Volkswagen Taigun, Hyundai Alcazar, Mahindra XUV700, and new-gen Scorpio among others.
In contrast, the only new hatchback lined up for a launch in the months ahead is the next-gen Celerio. The last all-new hatchback to be launched in India was the Hyundai i20 in November last year, followed by the i-Turbo variant of the Tata Altroz earlier in January this year. It is worth mentioning here that Maruti Suzuki, India's largest carmaker, has dominated the top-selling cars list for the past few years, all with their hatchbacks. Earlier this month, Maruti revealed that models like the Swift, Baleno, WagonR, and Alto have been top-selling cars in FY2021. The Maruti Swift grabbed the first position in the list of best-selling cars of FY2021 as the carmaker has sold over 1.72 lakh units.
Maruti Swift was followed by the company’s premium hatchback, Baleno, with total sales of almost 1.63 lakh units. In third position comes the WagonR with Maruti retailing over 1.60 lakh units of the tallboy hatchback. The carmaker’s former champion and the most affordable hatchback, Alto, registered a total sales of 1.59 lakh units, putting it in fourth position. As per Maruti, these afore mentioned models contributed to almost 30 per cent of overall passenger vehicle sales in FY2021. The carmaker has managed to maintain over 50 per cent of the market share in the highly competitive Indian automobile market, all thanks to hatchbacks. The automaker has grabbed all the top five spots in India since FY2018.
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