Maruti Suzuki cements position as govt employees’ favourite car-maker; Alto, Swift emerge as most preferred cars

The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki has further consolidated its position as the most preferred carmaker among government employees. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal —April to January — sales volumes to government employees increased 31% year-on-year to 2,34,000 units against 2,17,000 a year ago.

In August 2016, the first tranche of payment of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations were made, which pulled up sales of products like the Alto, Wagon R, Swift and Dzire. Out of total number of cars sold by the company to the government employees, the Alto constituted 26% and was followed by the Swift (16%), Wagon R (15%) and Dzire (14%). During the January to April period, most of these products had registered a decline in sales mainly because the customer preference has been moving to newer products like the Baleno and Brezza.

A company spokesperson attributed the success to the `Wheels of India’ campaign, coupled with high-decibel BTL (below-the-line) and ATL (above-the-line) marketing campaigns, targeting government employees. These include facilitating loans and special promotion for targeted high potential focused departments.

To tap into the increased affordability of government employees as a result of salary revision and payment of arrears, the company increased discounts for them. During the last festive season (September-October) discounts given to government employees was almost R15,000 apart from cash benefits, exchange offers, loyalty discounts, among others.

Having a wide range of products in segments like mini, hatchback or compact sedan segment also helped Maruti cater to a large base of customers with varied preferences compared to its competitors.

“Maruti Suzuki has a wide portfolio of network for both sales and service. The success story is very encouraging as it demonstrates customers’ confidence in Maruti Suzuki and reinforces our commitment to offer products that meet customer demands,” a Maruti spokesperson said.

The market share of the company’s offering among cab aggregator services like Ola and Uber has also increased to almost 35% in the current fiscal compared to 30% and 20% in FY16 and FY15, respectively.