Toyota studying compact SUV market in country

Compact SUV segment has emerged strongly in past couple of years owing to increased demand from car buyers

In the backdrop of rapid growth of compact Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) in India, automaker Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) today said it was studying the market for the segment and looking at customer feedback before taking a call for any possible launch.

The compact SUV segment has emerged strongly in the past couple of years owing to the demand from car buyers looking at graduating from a hatchback to an affordable SUV option.

"We are studying how people are looking at the compact SUV segment. However, nothing has yet been finalised and any development on this front would be announced at an appropriate time," TKM General Manager R K Ramesh replied to a Business Standard query here today. TKM is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan.

Homegrown SUV major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) had already launched a compact SUV 'KUV 100' aimed at the youth and first-time buyers. The base petrol variant of KUV is priced around Rs 4.50 lakh.

Similarly, other carmakers have similar offerings in this new segment. However, Toyota is yet to play in this space, which is expanding fast owing to varied factors including price, economy of parking space, combining features of hatchback with SUV etc.

Ramesh was in town to launch 'Innova Crysta', which was earlier unveiled at the Auto Expo - The Motor Show 2016. It is priced between Rs 14 lakh and Rs 21 lakh (ex-showroom) in Lucknow.

He said since its launch about 11 years back, Toyota had sold nearly 6 lakh units of Innova in India and the company was looking at increasing its market share by 10 percent with the refurbished launch of its top selling model.