India's largest utility vehicle manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra expressed concern over its declining market share in the domestic Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) segment. As per reports, the company's market share for SUVs has declined from as high as 56 per cent in FY 2011-12 to about 48 per cent in FY 2012-13. The ever-growing competitions in the SUV segment could further erode the market share of M&M in the coming months.
Speaking on the declining market share, Pawan Goenka, President of Mahindra Automotive and farm equipment sectors, said, “With so much competition in SUVs now, market share is bound to go down.” To counter this, a mixture of new products and higher variants of current ones would be launched later this year. Though the company’s passenger vehicle sales went up by 19 per cent during FY 2012-13, domestic tractor sales fell 5 per cent during the same time.
Vehicles from the compact SUV segment such as Renault Duster are hurting sales of the Mahindra Scorpio and the XUV500. Though sales of the Tata Safari Storme have not really taken off, this vehicle also has the potential to dent Mahindra & Mahindra market share further. The Scorpio could be suffering from a mid-life crisis, since it has not been redesigned even once in the last decade. The company has plans of redesigning the same and launching the new version later this year, or by next year. On June 5, 2013, Mahindra would launch its first premium hatchback, christened as the Verito Vibe. This would have interior space similar to the Verito sedan and is expected to be priced from Rs. 5.50 lakh to Rs. 6 lakh. Along with the compact SUV Quanto, this vehicle would tap into the excise duty cut for sub 4 metre vehicles in India.
At a higher range, the company has launched the Rexton, in partnership with SsangYong Motors. Further down 2013, it would look to launch SsangYong Korando and Rhodius as well, where Rhodius is a Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV). It will be interesting to see how these new vehicles fare against established players in the Indian market.
