Celerio Leads Maruti Suzuki’s Push Into Rural India

MUMBAI – A hatchback of diminutive city-car proportions is helping Maruti Suzuki make inroads into rural Indian markets and boost its dominance of the segment.

The Celerio collected 14,000 bookings within two weeks of its February 2014 launch and recorded 100,000 sales in less than 16 months. That outpaced Honda’s Amaze compact sedan and Renault’s Duster SUV, but was slower than the 10- to 13-month span in which both Hyundai’s Grand i10 hatchback and Ford’s EcoSport achieved 100,000 deliveries.

“Celerio has enabled us to sharpen Maruti’s rural focus and allowed us to push deeper into smaller towns and villages,” Chairman R C Bhargava says. India’s No.1 automaker saw rural sales jump 23% last year, compared with 11% in urban areas. Maruti aims to increase its rural reach to 150,000 villages by 2016, up from the current 125,000.

The automaker credits the Celerio for its claimed 71% of India’s hatchback market, up from 61% in early 2014.

The Celerio is no bigger than the small hatchbacks it replaced, the Estilo and A-star. But whereas those cars had fallen out of favor with buyers because of their poor build quality and lack of rear- seat and trunk room, the Celerio offers greater value with its superior engineering, automatic/manual transmission option and improved fuel efficiency.

The Celerio’s 1.0L, 3-cyl., 12-valve K series gasoline engine produces 67 hp at 6,000 rpm and 66 lb.-ft. (90 Nm) of torque at 3,500 rpm. “Engine assembly is so optimized that our models with manual and (automatic/manual) transmissions give the same fuel efficiency” of 54.3 mpg (4.3 L/100 km), says R S Kalsi, executive director-marketing and sales.

This year Maruti Suzuki has added a 0.8L, 2-cyl. diesel engine developed in-house at a cost of Rs9 billion ($145 million). Generating 48 hp and 92 lb.-ft. (125 Nm) of torque at 2,000 rpm, the mill can be paired either with the automaker’s 5-speed manual or automatic/manual transmission.

Maruti Suzuki claims the diesel achieves 65 mpg (3.6 L/100 km) in a car weighing 132 lbs. (60 km) less than the gasoline version. C V Raman, executive director-engineering, research and design, says designers also addressed the inconsistent quality of fuel in India: “We had to make sure there was no performance loss or any impact on durability of the car with lower-quality diesel at the pumps.”

The compact engine features 97% local content and was developed as a lower-cost alternative to diesels made by Fiat, whose 1.2L, 1.3L and 1.6L mills are used in Tata, Ford, Honda and other Maruti Suzuki vehicles.