SUV segment to see intense competition among automakers in India, says Tata

The SUV segment in India will witness intense competition among players, as the demand for utility vehicles is propelling the auto manufacturers in the country to roll out new products across different sizes and price slabs, believes Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director of Tata Motors' Passenger Vehicles wing. His comment comes on the heels of the release of the latest data by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), which has revealed that SUV sales account for 60 per cent of the overall passenger vehicle sales in the country.

Speaking to news agency PTI, Chandra said that the SUV segment will see intense competition among car manufacturers in India. He also said that the top three or four passenger vehicle brands in India will have a difference of just a few thousand units of sales from each other. His comment comes at a time when Tata Motors launched an updated Harrier SUV along with the updated Safari SUV in India on Tuesday. Also, Chandra's observation comes at a time when SUVs are driving the overall growth of the domestic passenger vehicle segment, a crown that used to be held by small cars like hatchbacks for decades in a highly cost-sensitive market like India.

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Over the last few years, Tata Motors has become a leading player in the Indian passenger vehicle market thanks to its range of SUVs. The country's leading car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki, which has been known as a small car giant, too has been increasingly focusing on SUVs. Another major player Hyundai too has been increasingly focusing on SUVs, while Mahindra has been trying to ramp up its market share in the SUV space with new and updated models.

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Speaking about the market leadership in the Indian car market, Chandra believes that automakers will be closely competition with each other in the coming days, as SUVs will play a major role in deciding the top position. "The SUV segment is going to be an intensely fought segment. The top three-four players will have just a few thousand (units) here and there. At some point someone will be number one, sometimes somebody else will become number two," he said. The Tata Motors official also noted that in such scenarios it is more important to focus on the individual products and whether they are in the top two considerations for buyers.

Speaking about Tata Motors' own product strategy for the SUV segment, the automaker aims to ramp up its game further with new products. Chandra said that Tata Motors will launch the Curvv in 2024 and Sierra in 2025. Both these two models have been already previewed through their respective concept forms. This will further strengthen the auto company's SUV portfolio over the next few years.