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Jittery Ride of Wagon R: Experience in Indian Market

2006; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Bhaskar Mishra, Sumit Anand,

Indian Economic and Social Development

Maruti launched Wagon R in Feb. 2000 to compete with the Hyundai's Santro, Tata's Indica, Fiat's Palio in Indian market. It was a huge success at the time of its launch in month of Feb. and March with sales of approx. 8000 units but after that it bumped in the market which resulted in loss to maruti (in terms of profit after tax) for the first time in the history of more than twenty years and reduced market share to 48% from 50%. Later in 2001-2004 Maruti entered in four related businesses such as corporate lease and fleet management (Mid-2001), buying and selling of used cars (October 2001) auto finance (January 2002), car insurance (May 2002) to increase the market share. They also positioned the wagon R as a family car and emphasized on the features of the vehicle. In year 2003-2004 Wagon R growth rate was higher than Santro. In February 2005, Wagon R's sales were higher than the Santro's and in March the Alto stole, too, the Santro's thunder. This case study discusses about what went wrong with the positioning, promotion, pricing or may be with the product (Wagon R) because of which it did not performed as expected in Indian market.