Who's winning - Honda City or Maruti Suzuki's SX4?

     

India's largest small carmaker is finally making a dent in the premium mid-size market.Maruti Suzuki's SX4 has broken Honda City's stranglehold and the fight promises to intensify. However, Honda is hitting back to regain market share.

 

Honda City's six-year dominance of the mid-size premium car segment has been dented by Maruti-Suzuki's latest offering, the SX4. According to June sales figures, the SX4 and Maruti Esteem sold almost 4000 units vs 2656 of the Honda City.

 

From 14.7 per cent in May last year, Maruti's market share in the A3 segment has virtually doubled to 25.2 per cent in may this year. During the same period, Honda City's market share has fallen from 22 per cent to 14.2 per cent. Reports suggest that Honda recently circulated a 12-page document to its sales force, giving eight reasons why the City is a better buy than SX4. Maruti sees this as an acknowledgement of the SX4's success.

 

In FY '06-07, Honda City was the market leader in the mid segment selling over 40,000 cars, followed by Ford India. Honda is targeting a sales growth of 5 per cent for the City and hopes to sell 42,000 units this year. Honda says the disturbance is only 'transitional'.

 

Suzuki introduced the SX4 at a very competitive price, keeping the base variant Rs 50,000 cheaper than Honda City.

 

The battle for supremacy between the Japanese automakers is likely to intensify with both sides expected to increase their sales tempo in the coming months. Honda is gearing up to upgrade its city by October this year to fight for its leadership position. But for Suzuki, it will be a fight to create a presence in the premium sedan category, a segment in which the company hasn't had much success.