A recent report stated that during the period January to March 2018, automatic car sales in India commanded a market share of more than 10%. This speaks of a new trend in the Indian auto industry. The market share of automatic cars is on the rise.
Like other car makers, Maruti Suzuki India too knew that demand for automatic cars will increase. The solution was to offer AT on more cars. But adding an automatic transmission to their small cars would have made them expensive and less fuel efficient. This is not what they wanted. This led to the birth of AMT – Automated Manual Transmission in India about four years ago.
In 2014, Maruti Suzuki launched AMT equipped Celerio in the country. This was the first ever AMT car to be on sale in India. Costlier by about INR 30,000 than the standard variant, AMT delivers same fuel efficiency as the manual transmission. After a little more than 4 years, Maruti Suzuki now offers AMT gearbox on a variety of their cars – Swift, Dzire, Brezza, Ignis, etc. Today, Maruti Suzuki announced that the overall sales of their AMT cars has crossed the 3 lakh mark.
Commenting on the success of the Auto Gear Shift technology from Maruti Suzuki, Mr R S Kalsi, Senior Executive Director (Marketing and Sales), Maruti Suzuki India Limited, said, “At Maruti Suzuki, we believe in providing our customers with the best of technology and convenience. The revolutionary Auto Gear Shift technology is one such innovation that offers comfort and ease of driving to the customers with no compromise on fuel efficiency. It has achieved wide acceptance among customers. Crossing 3-lakh retail sales mark within five years of its introduction is a reflection of the success and consent of the customers for the two-pedal technology.”
It took Maruti Suzuki two years to announce the milestone of selling 1 lakh AMT cars. The next milestone came after a little more than one year, and the 3rd lakh units of AMT got sold in less than 1 year’s time.
Now, Maruti is confident that they will be selling 2 lakh AMT units in fiscal year 2018/19. And with the products on offer from them, it does not seem impossible.