Jimny's acceptability seems to have gone up post price announcement, says Maruti official | Exclusive

By Varun SinghThe acceptability of the recently-launched 5-door Jimny SUV among buyers seems to have increased since its price announcement with a remarkable jump in average bookings per day, according to Maruti Suzuki India’s Senior Executive Officer for Marketing and Sales, Shashank Srivastava.

Maruti announced the prices of the Jimny on June 7. The most recent addition to the carmaker’s SUV portfolio is priced between Rs 12.74 lakh and Rs 15.05 lakh (ex-showroom).

While the company has garnered over 31,000 bookings for the Jimny till now, it is now registering nearly 151 bookings per day for the SUV as against 92 prior to the announcement of the prices.

“So far, we have had bookings of more than 31,000. We have seen that since the price announcement on June 7, the average bookings per day have gone up. Now we are getting about 151 bookings per day compared to 92 per day before the price announcement. So the acceptability seems to have gone up post the price announcement,” Srivastava told India Today.

According to Srivastava, with the prices of Jimny out, the buyers really like the value proposition.

“When we announced the price, initially people said that the Thar price starts at Rs 10.54 lakh whereas the Jimny price starts at Rs 12.74 lakh. But when they went into the details, they would have seen how to compare apples with apples and there, the Jimny seems to be a much stronger proposition,” he pointed.

The Jimny Alpha AT is priced at Rs 14.89 lakh and compares with the Thar LX 4WD Hard Top, which is priced at Rs 16.10 lakh. Other like-to-like variants of the Jimny are also cheaper than those of the Thar.

“The Thar is not a 5-door vehicle, whereas the Jimny is a 5-door SUV. Also, the Rs 10.54 lakh price of the Thar you are looking at is for the 2WD model. The Jimny has a standard 4WD and six airbags compared with the two airbags of the Thar. So, all those factors when you take them into account, I suppose, are the reasons why consumers have accepted that this price is probably good and therefore, the number of bookings has gone up since the announcement of the price,” Srivastava observed.

When asked whether the Jimny is attracting first-time buyers, Srivastava replied”Not so much.”

“They are usually additional car buyers and some of them are replacement car buyers. The largest segment is additional car buyers,” he said.

Maruti now has four SUVs in its portfolio — Fronx, Brezza, Jimny and Grand Vitara. The carmaker is aiming to become the largest SUV manufacturer in India in FY24 with a segment share of 25% and volumes close to 475,000 units.

Talking about the relevance of the Jimny in achieving Maruti’s SUV target, Srivastava said”The Jimny is quite important, more than from a volume perspective, because it is in the compact SUV segment. While it is the largest segment, we have two products that are doing extremely well there, the Brezza and the Fronx, with the Brezza volumes being around the 15,000-mark, and the Fronx just under 10,000 units.”

“From a volume perspective, the Jimny may add some good numbers, but less than what the Brezza and the Fronx do. But more importantly, Jimny has a great brand presence, and that brand image perspective of our overall SUV portfolio should give us a good dividend. Hence, Jimny is very important,” he added.

(All the prices mentioned above are ex-showroom)