Call it the sign of the times or changing trends which has given way to buyers looking at cars a lot differently than before. And nothing justifies that fact better than the 2017 April car sales numbers. The Maruti Suzuki Alto which had been the best-selling car for ages has been toppled over by its very own stablemate, the Swift. The Alto in April sold 22,549 units while the Swift went on to hit 23,802 units. Now you might say that the difference of 1253 units is not much, but the important point here is that comparing the prices of the base variants of both the cars, the Swift costs almost twice that of the Alto and yet it managed to outsell it is a very big deal. What is also surprising is that the new Swift is just around the corner and yet buyers have no qualms in picking up the current car.
But there’s more to it. For starters, the Alto hasn’t sold less, in fact the numbers have gone up by 16 per cent compared to March. So how did the Swift manage to beat it? We put the Dzire angle to it here. Since the new Dzire was launched this month, production for the older Dzire would have definitely slowed down which would have led to availability in the production line. As a result Maruti could have pushed the Swift in there, thereby producing more units. The new Dzire just being launched and not as easily available, it is also possible that dealers as a result have pushed for the Swift instead of the Dzire.
Following the Swift and the Alto is the Baleno which sold a whopping 17,530 units becoming the third best-seller of the month followed by the WagonR in fourth. The Hyundai Elite i20 and the i10 Grand come in at fifth and sixth position with the Creta coming in eighth, the three Hyundai’s being the only non Maruti’s in the top ten list of April 2017.
