Maruti Suzuki India has announced that its premium Nexa retail sales channel has driven past the 2 million-unit sales mark in India. The milestone comes a little less than eight years after the carmaker kicked off the Nexa initiative on July 23, 2015, followed by the launch of its first Nexa model, the S-Cross, in August 2015. Since then, the carmaker has launched five other models – which constitute two hatchbacks (Baleno, Ignis), one sedan (Ciaz) and two SUVs (XL6, Grand Vitara).
Maruti Suzuki's Nexa strategy
Nexa operates separately from the regular Maruti Suzuki Arena channel, which retails nine other models such as the Alto, S-Presso, Celerio, Wagon R, Swift, Dzire, Vitara Brezza, Ertiga and Eeco. This differentiates Nexa as a premium, higher-priced offering with all the bells and whistles, with a heightened focus on customer satisfaction.
For Maruti Suzuki, Nexa was a strategic move to diversify its retail offering in terms of value and target a new emerging segment of customers with changing preferences, ie, young India. Clearly, the differentiating sales strategy has paid off handsomely. From a 6 percent share of Maruti Suzuki’s total passenger vehicle sales in FY2016, Nexa’s contribution jumped to 19 percent in FY2022.
In what is a sign that the differentiating strategy has been spot-on, nearly 50 percent of Nexa customers are under 35 years old, says the brand, and a very high percentage of them are first-time car buyers.
Maruti Suzuki Nexa sales
A quick number-crunching exercise of Nexa sales since July 2015 reveals that 19,93,977 units have been sold till the end of February 2023, just 6,023 units shy of the 20 lakh-unit mark, which was then surpassed in March 2023.
Of the five Nexa models, the Baleno hatchback has gone home to over 12 lakh buyers and commands 63 percent of total Nexa sales. The Baleno, which crossed 10 lakh sales in November 2021, is likely to surpass the 2 lakh-unit sales mark in FY2023, albeit this will still be below its best yet of 2.12 lakh units that were sold in FY2019.
The Ignis, with 2.41 lakh units, has a 12 percent share of Nexa sales to date. The third highest contributor to Nexa sales is the Ciaz sedan with a 7 percent share albeit sales have slowed considerably over the past few years.
In October 2022, Maruti Suzuki, which has the largest portfolio of CNG cars in India, expanded its factory-fitted CNG offerings to Nexa – the Baleno and XL6. In January 2023, the recently launched Grand Vitara also got the CNG treatment. The Grand Vitara SUV, launched in September 2022 and voted the Autocar Car of the Year, has already sold 41,270 units in six months and already accounts for 2 percent of Nexa sales.
Speaking on Nexa’s 2-million milestone, Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer, Marketing & Sales at Maruti Suzuki India, said, “Reaching the 2 million sales milestone is a testimony of customers' love for our hi-tech and feature-packed offerings and premium experiences. NEXA has contributed to more than 20 percent of total Maruti Suzuki sales and the numbers are going strong. With the recent unveiling of two new SUVs – Jimny and Fronx – the NEXA portfolio looks stronger than ever. Both have garnered combined booking numbers of over 38,000 units. We’re confident that the NEXA channel is poised for greater success in the upcoming year.”
From 40 outlets at the time of the premium retail channel’s opening in July 2015, Nexa now has over 440 showrooms in 280 cities across India. The Nexa story could get even bigger, what with the Jimny 5-door SUV (which has already received over 22,000 bookings) and the Fronx (which is seen 16,000-plus bookings) set to join the party when they are launched later this year.
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Maruti Suzuki Nexa sells over 1.4 million cars in 6 years