Thursday, February 27, 2014
By John Andrew
Buyers opting for Automatic variant of Maruti Celerio
Most customers of the newly launched Maruti Celerio hatchback are opting for the expensive automatic variant, surprising the company and signaling a significant demand for automatic cars — know for effortless drive and faster acceleration. According to some Maruti SuzukiBSE -0.85 % insiders, more than 52% of around 20,000 Celerio cars delivered and booked so far in the country have been the automatic variant. This is almost double the share the company had initially expected. "We will have to fine tune our supply chain and production targets to meet this spiralling demand for automatic," Mayank Pareek, chief operating office for marketing and sales at Maruti Suzuki, told ET.
The automatic Celerio comes at a starting price of Rs 4.14 lakh after the excise reduction on February 17, while the manual-geared version is priced Rs 3.76 lakh onwards. Launched at the 2014 Delhi Auto Expo, Maruti Celerio is the first car to be offered with automatic manual transmission or, AMT, in the country. This improved technology has allowed Maruti to cut down the price difference with manual cars by more than half toRs 37,843, and retain fuel efficiency at par with the manual version at 23 kmpl.
While carmakers, including Maruti, have launched automaticgear variants in the market earlier as well, they were mostly priced more than Rs 1 lakh higher than manual-gear variants, and failed to make much impact. "The shift towards automatic is signally a rapid acceptance of the convenience driving technology. It is a sign of maturing Indian customers and shows that now the automatics transmissions now are here to stay," said Pradeep Saxena, executive director at market consultancy firm TNS Automotive. Maruti's Pareek said, "Indians are now exposed to global markets and once they switch to convenient driving, they prefer same in India."
Source: Economic Times
Read here to know more about Maruti Celerio.
