M&M banks on Bolero brand to increase Maxi Truck reach

Utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra(M&M) is banking on leveraging its popular Bolero brand to expand its presence in the pick-up segment, where it is currently the market leader with an 85 per cent market share. 

It launched the Bolero Maxi Truck with a one-tonne payload for the style conscious customer. “The rural customer is increasingly becoming more and more style and comfort conscious, and we have used the look of the Bolero to give this pick-up truck a more stylish look,” said Mahesh Kulkarni, general manager, marketing, automotive sector,M&M. He added that the Bolero had sold over 56,000 vehicles last year. 

The small pick-up segment is clocking a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent and currently has a market size of 1.1 lakh vehicles per annum. M&M enjoys a 20 per cent market share in this segment which is dominated by the Tata Ace. “We have placed this vehicle above the Ace and positioned it as a premium pick up that uses micro-hybrid technology and is also competitively priced at Rs 3.49 lakh ex-showroom in Kolkata,” Kulkarni said. It will also provide a fuel efficiency of 15 kilometer to a litre which is comparable to the Ace. 

M&M is the market leader in the large pick-up segment with an 85 per cent share, while it has a 30 per cent share of the three-wheeler commercial vehicle segment. The company enjoyed an overall market share of 85 per cent in the pick-up segment, Kulkarni claimed. It has grown by 26 per cent in first quarter of the current fiscal in the pick-up segment as against an industry average of 18-20 per cent growth. The company plans to sell around 600-700 vehicles per month in eastern India. It sells around 2000 Maxi trucks per month across India now.