Maruti Lines Up Sales Blitzkrieg For Baleno

Maruti Udyog is planning to implement an aggressive new strategy for improving sales of the Baleno, its offering in the premium mid-sized segment.

Monthly sales of the Baleno, a sedan which currently competes with the Honda City, Mitsubishi Lancer and Opel Astra, have thus far been below the company's expectations, and are in the region of about 100-150 units a month.

Senior company officials, while admitting that the sales of Baleno "are not doing too well", said that they are planning to initiate a direct marketing campaign for Baleno, aimed at increasing customer awareness. In addition, the company is also planning to showcase the Baleno at a reserved place at some of its dealerships, to make it more appealing. Currently, the Lancer and the City share a lion's share in the segment.

Maruti, meanwhile, today unveiled the Versa, its first multi-purpose vehicle (MPV), in Mumbai. The Versa, which is being offered in three variants, will be priced at Rs 5.49 lakhs (for the DX version), Rs 5.80 lakhs (DX2) and Rs 6.17 lakhs (SDX) (all ex-Mumbai prices).

The Versa is the company's second offering in the lower C-segment, in addition to the Maruti Esteem. Senior company officials said they expected sales of around 5,000 units of the Versa by the end of the current fiscal. Although developed on a new platform, the Versa comes with the same 1.3-litre engine that is currently fitted on the Esteem, with minor modifications.

Jagdish Khattar, managing director of Maruti said, "Worldover, auto companies are trying to reduce the number of product platforms to increase synergies and to prune costs. At Maruti, our products can be broadly classified under three platforms - the Alto-Wagon R platform (also including the Maruti 800, Omni and Zen), the Baleno platform (also including the Baleno Altura), and the 1300 cc platform (including the Esteem and the Versa)."

Khattar also said the response to the company's ongoing voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) "has been good" so far. The final outcome of the VRS would be announced next week, he said.