Maruti Suzuki expands its car-subscription service to two more cities

Maruti Suzuki on Tuesday announced it is expanding its car-subscription service to two more cities - Hyderabad and Pune. This comes shortly after the country's largest car maker had rolled out the program in Bengaluru, Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Noida, in partnership with ORIX Auto Infrastructure Services India .

Maruti had rolled out its subscription plans on September 24 with the promise of offering flexibility of driving without the need to actually own the car. It had already announced that while this is available in select cities, it plans to cover many more across the country in the times to come. The addition of Hyderabad and Pune to the list is an expansion of the same plans and the company eventually wants to extend this to around 60 cities over the course of the next three years.

The subscription plans range from periods between 12 months and 48 months, depending on the car selected. The monthly fee starts at ₹14,463 (all taxes included) for Swift LXi in Delhi on a 48-month period. This also includes expenses like maintenance, zero-dep insurance and 24x7 roadside assistance. At the end of the subscription period, customers can opt to upgrade the vehicle, extend or even buy the car at market price.

The cars available for subscription include Swift, Dzire, Vitara Brezza, Ertiga, Baleno, Ciaz and XL6.

Maruti says that there are numerous benefits of subscribing to the vehicles rather than outright buying these. "Maruti Suzuki Subscribe is focussed to bring convenience to the individual customers. It comes with a bouquet of convenient features – flexible tenure, zero down payment, registration and insurance and also covers complete maintenance," said Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director - Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Limited. "We are overwhelmed with customer response in the first few weeks of pilot launch and received over 5,000 enquiries."