For the SX4, the fireworks will begin just after Diwali
For Maruti Suzuki SX4, the fireworks will begin just after Diwali. That is when the “man” among cars, as the SX4 is called in its ad campaigns, will be back after a short break.
India’s largest car company is however going all out to play down the re-launch of its sedan. Chairman R C Bhargava says minor changes or facelifts are done to all models periodically. Otherwise, the customer gets bored and sales suffer.
“As a model gets older, its sales drop. The sales of the SX4 were further hit due to a few misleading reports in media about Maruti planning to discontinue the SX4. Hopefully sales would look brighter after the facelift. I am not sure what target has been set for the car, but we will supply what the market will demand”, Bhargava says.
And, contrary to reports, Bollywood star John Abraham is not being roped in to endorse the refurbished SX4. Sources familiar with the developments say talks were indeed on with Abraham, but did not make much headway over contract details.
So what is the facelift all about? The engine will be upgraded to the Bharat Stage IV emission norms, which will kick in from April next year in 11 cities, and the power output will be scaled up to give it a higher pick-up. The car will now drive on the variable valve timing technology.
In addition, SX4 will have new bumpers, a ‘‘sophisticated-looking” grille and spruced-up interiors. The new car will also have an additional automatic variant — another first for any sedan from Maruti. The new car will of course be more expensive than the current top-end Zxi variant, which comes at Rs 7.5 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
Predictably, a new brand campaign is also on its way. Maruti has already changed its advertisement once. The first ad showed a bunch of girls ruing the lack of men, but their mood changes when the car arrives to the beat of ‘It’s raining men’. But the ad was withdrawn following the feedback that it was a bit tame. The second ad had more attitude and conveyed naked aggression when pushed to the wall. Maruti executives are tightlipped about the third version, but the central theme, they say, will continue to be masculinity.
The jury is out on whether the changes will revive the fortunes of the SX4. While the company says they will turn around the car’s fortunes, others are not that sure. An executive from a competing company says the relaunch will be a costly affair and he isn’t sure whether SX4 had reached the stage of a re-launch. “Any planned additional cost towards development has to first ensure that the earlier cost is fully or satisfactorily recovered. Otherwise, the cost per unit will shoot up like anything,” he says.
He has a point. Maruti launched the SX4 in May 2007 primarily to dislodge Honda City from its market leadership in the upper sedan segment. The plan showed huge initial promise. The model, launched in three manual variants, was priced Rs 50,000 cheaper than the second generation Honda City. The advantage of a superior service back-up and a high-voltage media campaign ensured that the SX4 sold 3,000 units a month and outpaced the City in sales growth.
However, Honda struck back in September 2008 with the launch of a third generation City which sported futuristic styling coupled with vastly improved interiors and top-of-the-line driving dynamics. The heavier price tag notwithstanding, the new City almost drove the SX4 out of the market, with the sales of the Maruti sedan dropping to just 600-700 units a month.
Mahantesh Sabarad, an analyst with Centrum Broking, says the SX4 started out as something which could take on the dominance of Honda’s City. But it failed to live up to the potential of the segment. “Maruti just lost out to the finesse associated with the City or any of the other products of Honda,” he says.
Sabarad says one of the major reasons for the City’s success is the timely changes the company made to the car. Besides, the resale demand for the City is a big draw. “We are not sure about the changes that Maruti will bring to the SX4, but it will be a real tough task to beat the Honda City”, he says.
For Maruti, clearly a lot is at stake. The company hasn’t really been able to break out of its image of only a champion small car manufacturer – an impression reinforced by the fact that the two models that Maruti has been forced to phase out are both from the sedan segment — Esteem and Baleno.
Maruti doesn’t agree with the observation and cites the success of the DZire, which replaced Esteem. It’s true that the Swift DZire model, which is placed in the entry level segment, is enjoying an order backlog of over two to three months, thanks to the availability of a diesel option.
The company, which controls 60 per cent of the domestic compact car segment, is obviously not willing to give up just yet on the high-margin sedan segment. So wait for the new SX4.
