Utility Vehicles Overtake Hatchbacks, Auto News, ET Auto

Mumbai: Utility vehicles have overtaken hatchbacks in gross sales in the past calendar year, turning out to be the prime-promoting section in India’s automotive marketplace for the very first time.

Within utility vehicles, SUVs accounted for about 8 out of ten units sold. With about 65% expansion in SUV gross sales in 2021, India has also very likely become the third-biggest marketplace for SUVs in the earth, likely a situation bigger by overtaking Japan, in accordance to marketplace estimates.

In the calendar year gone by, shut to one.forty two million utility vehicles had been estimated to have been sold in India, compared with about one.23 million hatchbacks.

In 2020, hatchback gross sales had topped SUVs at one.fourteen million to 900,000. The share of utility vehicles is projected to have grown to forty six% in 2021 from 37% the calendar year ahead of, whereas for hatchbacks, it has very likely shrunk to forty% from forty seven%.

Change: Global Trend, Say Analysts

SUVs on your own have accounted for about one.18 million units in 2021, demonstrate marketplace figures. Japan is very likely to have sold about a million units.

Increasing desire for SUVs is a international craze and India is just adhering to that, say marketplace analysts. For the Indian purchaser, appealing finance schemes, low desire costs and styles accessible at quite a few selling price points are serving to satiate the penchant in direction of the sportier and extra premium vehicles compared with the no-frills hatchbacks.

“The Indian purchaser has rapidly followed the international craze and made the Indian marketplace an SUV marketplace,” said Gaurav Vangaal, affiliate director at automotive consultancy firm IHS Markit. He expects utility vehicles to keep on being the biggest section in the marketplace likely ahead.

Automakers are also actively selling SUV gross sales, as the margins are bigger than hatchbacks. Product sales would have been bigger but for a international scarcity of semiconductors, which has affected the generation of SUVs and other feature-prosperous vehicles extra than entry-level cars and trucks.

Shashank Srivastava, senior govt director at Maruti Suzuki, said the SUV section has been increasing about the final five decades, specifically the compact SUV section wherever the company’s Brezza is the marketplace chief. “This calendar year (2021), the compact SUV section is nearly 22% of the marketplace,” he included. “While general the layout desire for SUVish vehicles has grown, the other big reason is that the selling price overlap with sedans and premium hatchbacks has improved the cross thought for the SUVs,” he said.

As for each the IHS Markit light car generation evaluation, India’s hatchback and sedan output has been falling due to the fact 2014, even as that of SUVs improved.

Vangaal expects the SUV marketplace to develop at a compounded once-a-year fee of 9% in between 2021 and 2025, faster than the three.seven% expansion estimated for hatchbacks.
Individuals are also spoilt for selections in the SUV place, with at least 93 styles accessible with price ranges beginning at as low as Rs five.five lakh.

As quite a few as forty six new SUVs have strike the roads in the final a few to 4 decades, extra than hatchbacks (24) and sedans (16) merged. Even in the coming decades, new SUV launches will go on to travel the marketplace. According to automotive consultancy firm Jato Dynamics India, nine SUV launches are planned for 2022.

VG Ramakrishnan, controlling director at consultancy firm Avanteum Advisors, said deficiency of solutions in roomy sedans for people to journey alongside one another is also one particular of the motives for rising desire for SUVs and other utility vehicles.

“With Covid, driving will become preferred for shorter distances compared to trains,” he said “The shift in direction of SUVs is a international craze and we will go on to see acceleration in SUV gross sales in India far too. Even if expansion returns to the hatchback marketplace, SUVs will go on to be the dominant section.”

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Sustainability and electric will be the theme that will run by way of most of 2022 as companies, dealerships, and even ingredient makers gear up for the period of greener vehicles, which are also becoming pushed intensely by way of subsidies by the central and state governments. The only achievable dampener here could be the international semiconductor crunch, nevertheless this is also becoming tackled nearly at a war footing.