With more new launches in this space in the coming months, rivalry in the subcompact SUV segment will intensify further
The sub-4 metre SUV space is arguably the most hotly contested segment in the Indian automotive market currently. Over the last couple of years, this segment has held the lion’s share of sales volume of passenger vehicles in India. As of now, there are as many as ten offerings from different manufacturers in this segment.
Venue, Vitara Brezza Lead Charts
Leading this segment in the month of December 2020 was Hyundai Venue which raked in 12,313 units for the South Korean automaker. In the previous year during the same period, Venue recorded sales of 9,521 units whereas in November 2020, this number stood at 9,265 units. This means a YoY growth of 29.32 percent and an MoM growth of 32.90 percent.
Venue was closely followed by Maruti Vitara Brezza which brought in 12,251 units of sales volume for the Indo-Japanese carmaker. This number is slightly lower when compared to December 2019 (13,658 units) but substantially higher than November 2020 (7,833 units).
This translates to YoY degrowth of 10.30 percent and an MoM growth of 56.40 percent. Interestingly, both Venue and Vitara Brezza combined to form more than half of this segment’s market share in the last month.
Nexon Overtakes Sonet
Third place was occupied by Tata Nexon with 6,835 units dispatched to dealers in December 2020. In comparison, last year this figure stood at 4,350 units and in November 2020 Tata Motors sold 6,021 units of its subcompact UV. Therefore, the company witnessed a positive YoY growth of 57.13 percent and an MoM growth of 13.52 percent.
Sonet, XUV300 Sales Decline
Fourth and fifth spots were taken by Kia Sonet and Mahindra XUV300 with 5,959 units and 3,970 units sold respectively. While YoY figures are not available for Sonet since it was launched mid-way in 2020, its MoM figures showed a sharp decline at 47.81 percent. Meanwhile, XUV300 witnessed a very sharp YoY growth of 86.40 percent although it faced a decline of 10.86 percent in MoM sales.
At 1,765 units sold in December 2020, Toyota Urban Cruiser took 6th place. Its sales declined by 37.78 percent from November 2020. Ford EcoSport and Honda WR-V took the eighth and ninth spots respectively with 935 units and 929 units sold last month. Both UVs registered negative growth in YoY as well as MoM sales figures. While the Japanese crossover witnessed a YoY and MoM decline of 33.55 percent and 3.03 percent respectively, the American UV witnessed a fall of 45.86 percent YoY and 41.19 percent respectively.
The latest addition to this list in Japanese carmaker Nissan’s Magnite which was launched last month and sold only 560 units. These numbers are going to rise exponentially in the coming months as the company has tons of bookings for the new subcompact crossover.
Thar
Though Thar is a sub 4m UV, it has not been added to the above list as it is a proper SUV, unlike the ones above. The compact off-roader sold 2,670 units last month which is 101 units more than its sales volume of November 2020. This resulted in an MoM growth of 3.93 percent.
