Over 2 lakh sales in 20 months, 333 units a day; Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza sets bar high for SUV game

The boom of compact SUVs in India came after the launch of Ford EcoSport in 2013. Mahindra quickly reacted to the trend by launching the TUV300. However, market leader Maruti Suzuki, known for its hatchback, launched its model, the Vitara Brezza, very late in March 2016. Twenty months down the line, Vitara Brezza has a stellar outing in Indian market which rivals can only envy about.

The latest feather in Vitara Brezza's cap is the crossing of sales milestone of two lakh units, reports Autocar Professional. The SUV has crossed this feat in just 20 months with average monthly sales of 10,005 units. This also means Vitara Brezza has found 333 takers every day.

Second bestselling SUV in India, Hyundai Creta also crossed two lakh sales recently. Launched in July 2015, the Creta took 25 months to breach the milestone. The Creta, until the end of October 2017, has sold a total of 2,24,015 units.

It needs to be noted that Vitara Brezza took fewer months for breaching the two lakh sales mark, despite it being sold only in diesel engine option. It is also offered only with a manual transmission while rivals and Hyundai Creta is offered in petrol and diesel engine options with automatic transmission options.

Priced from Rs 7.24 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), the Vitara Brezza is powered by a 200 DDis 1248cc diesel engine that develops 88.5bhp at 4,000rpm and 200Nm of torque at 1,750rpm mated to a five-speed manual gearbox. The SUV boasts of best-in-class fuel efficiency of 24.3 kmpl.

The Vitara Brezza crossed 50,000 unit sales in seven months of its launch, 100,000 in less than a year, 150,000 in 17 months and now the 200,000 landmark in 20 months. It also became the top-selling SUVs in India soon and retains the numero uno position for over 18 months.

Vitara Brezza also helped Maruti Suzuki to increase market share significantly in the UV space. In FY 2016-17, the company was the No. 2 UV player with a 25.69 percent share, behind leader Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) which had 29.30 percent. Now, after the first seven months of FY2018, Maruti Suzuki cruised to the top spot with 28.43 market share, pushing M&M behind with 26.31 percent.

Source: Autocar Professional