Maruti Suzuki CNG cars contribute over 10% of the brand's total sales

Maruti Suzuki is leading the CNG car segment in the Indian market with its range of factory-fitted CNG models. Maruti Suzuki has sold 863,874 units in India between April-December 2020 and 10.7% of the total sales volumes were attributed to CNG models.

The Indo-Japanese automaker sold a total of 92,270 units of factory-fitted CNG models between April and December 2020. As it appears, the sales of CNG cars by Maruti Suzuki were higher than the cumulative sales of Ford, MG Motor, Skoda, Jeep, and Nissan models in the Indian domestic market during the first nine months of FY21.

Maruti Suzuki sells the largest fleet of CNG cars including the models like WagonR, Celerio, Ertiga, Eeco, Dzire, Alto, and S-Presso. The WagonR hatchback sold 105,680 units between April-December 2020. At 34%, the tallboy hatchback sold 36,050 units of CNG variants. Ertiga too sold 20,467 units of CNG variants out of a total of 59,929 units retailed between the same period, marking 34% of the stake.

Celerio and Eeco models sold 29% and 16% of CNG variants out of their respective total sales. The sales percentage of CNG variants for Dzire, Alto, and S-Presso were 6%, 3%, and 7% respectively.

Maruti Suzuki has been focusing on CNG variants as part of its Mission Green Million strategy that was announced at the Auto Expo 2020. While the CNG variants contributed significantly to the total sales of the automaker’s cumulative sales volume. Interestingly, the absence of diesel models has drastically impacted the sales of the Dzire compact sedans.

While the Dzire Tour fleet variant contributed significantly to the total sales of the compact sedan, the CNG variants appeared inadequate to cover the market demand of the diesel variants. In 2019, 41% of total sales for the Dzire compact sedan came from the diesel segment, which dropped drastically in FY21 as the automaker discontinued its diesel engine while meeting the BS-VI emission norms. The sedan lost 38% volume in 2020.