Practical, spacious and easy-to-live-with urban hatchback achieves 3 million sales milestone 24 years after launch; third-gen petrol model launched in January 2019 and CNG variant help accelerate demand.
16 May 2023 | 19782 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
Maruti Suzuki India has announced that the Maruti Wagon R, India’s best-selling passenger car for the second year in a row in FY2023 with a record 212,340 units, has clocked cumulative sales of 30 lakh or 3 million units. The popular midsize hatchback, which was launched in 1999, has ...
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Maruti Suzuki India has announced that the Maruti Wagon R, India’s best-selling passenger car for the second year in a row in FY2023 with a record 212,340 units, has clocked cumulative sales of 30 lakh or 3 million units. The popular midsize hatchback, which was launched in 1999, has taken 24 years to surpass the 3-million milestone.
A quick look at the sales data or the Wagon R, which has built a formidable reputation for itself as a sensible, spacious efficient and reasonably hatchback for urban duties, reveals that sales have accelerated in the past two years (see 11-year wholesales data table below).
From FY2013 through to FY2023, a total of 18,33,521 Wagon Rs have been sold in India, accounting for 61% of the total three million units sold. The last million units – or 10,38,307 units to be precise – have come between FY2018 and FY2023.
Demand continues to rise for the spacious and practical urban runabout that the Wagon R is. A regular in the monthly best-selling passenger vehicles chart, the Wagon R, unlike many other PVs, did not seem to be adversely impacted by the pandemic and sales rose 2.3% to 160,330 units in FY2021. FY2022 saw sales of 188,837 units, which is strong 18% YoY growth, and the Wagon R went on to hit its best-ever fiscal year sales of 212,340 units in FY2023.
Third-gen Wagon R and CNG variant accelerate sales
What has given a fillip to sales is the launch of the third-generation Wagon R in January 2019, which took the midsize hatchback’s growth story forward. In the 51 months since its launch till end-March 2023, the new Wagon R has sold a total of 750,044 units, recording YoY growth for four straight years. And the hatchback has opened FY2024 on a strong note with wholesales of an estimated 20,875 units sold in April 2023.
The Wagon R has two engine options comprising a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol which develops 69hp and 90 Nm of torque, and a more powerful 1.2-litre four-cylinder petrol with 83hp and 113 Nm. Both engines have the options of manual and AMT gearboxes. The Wagon R 1.0 is also available with a factory fitted CNG kit, and this variant has become a strong growth engine for the model.
The Wagon R is available in nine variants, with pricing starting from Rs 637,000 for the base 1.00-litre LXI petrol through to the top-end 1.2-litre ZXi+ AT which has a sticker tag of 851,000 (both prices, on-road Delhi).
The Wagon R was one of the first Maruti Suzuki models to get the CNG treatment and the Wagon R CNG has since sold a total of 522,420 units, accounting for 17.41% of total Wagon R sales till now. Maruti Suzuki has the largest portfolio of CNG cars, which have cumulatively sold an estimated 1.32 million units. That also means that the Wagon R CNG has contributed to 39% of Maruti Suzuki’s total CNG passenger vehicle sales.
It is learnt that as of May 2023 the Wagon R has pending bookings of around 16,500 units across both petrol and CNG variants.
Commenting on the 30-lakh sales milestone, Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki India, said: “The Wagon R’s continued success with over 3 million cumulative sales is a testament to its undisputed reign as one of the most iconic Indian hatchbacks. The Wagon R has the highest percentage of repeat buyers as 24% of its customers prefer to upgrade to a new Wagon R. It has consistently featured in the top 10 best-selling cars in India since the last decade and has also held its position as the best-selling passenger vehicle in the country for the last two years.”
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