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The Alto has been Maruti's largest selling single model for the last six years. Ever since it overtook the Maruti 800 on the sales charts in 2004, it has had no looking back. Constantly raking in higher numbers over the years, Maruti Suzuki managed to push out over 240,000 units of its small car into the market last year and in the first quarter of this year alone, its average number has gone a notch higher to about nearly 70,000 units.
For a car that is now nearing 10 years in the Indian market, it surely counts for a lot. But Maruti isn't resting on its laurels, nor is it looking to bring in a new model to replace it. Rather, it plans to use the existing Alto as a weapon to bring back life in the A1 premium segment. Now, no one has been talking about subsets within subsets, but the Indian hatch market has gotten so crowded (and will continue to), that a lot of focus has been shifted towards the A2 segment where cars like the Maruti Suzuki Swift, Ritz, Hyundai i10 & i20, Ford Figo, VW Polo, Fiat Punto and Nissan Micra among others are battling it out. So while that end of the segment has grown at double digit rates consistently, the A1 segment has sort of stagnated.
The reason has been the lack of an exciting new product. Tata's Nano has suffered because of production constraints, GM's Chevrolet Spark hasn't managed to set the sales charts afire as it should have and Maruti's own 800 has been on a constant decline. So Maruti thought it was important to become even more stronger and expand the market. It also didn't have significant presence in the Rs 2.8-3.5 lakh segment, with only the Eeco MPV shuffling in and the base versions of the Estilo and Wagon R nearing Rs 3.5 lakh.
With the Alto K10, Maruti Suzuki have embarked on a new plan. They are pre-empting an all out onslaught by Tata Motors, Fiat and ALL-Nissan who plan to be a part of this segment. Even VW and Skoda aren't ignoring the possibility of being here.
So let's take a look at the Alto K10 and tell you all that you need to know Jump over to the next page to know about the exteriors of the Alto K10.
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