Senior Executive Director Rahul Bharti says claims of entry buyers shifting straight to SUVs were “proved incorrect” as compact-car demand surges across domestic and export markets.
01 Dec 2025 | 2231 Views | By Darshan Nakhwa
Maruti Suzuki India management on Monday said the long-held belief that small cars have lost relevance in India has been “proved completely incorrect,” with the company crediting the GST rate cuts for triggering a sharp revival in entry-segment demand and dismantling the notion that buyers were jumping straight to SUVs.
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Maruti Suzuki India management on Monday said the long-held belief that small cars have lost relevance in India has been “proved completely incorrect,” with the company crediting the GST rate cuts for triggering a sharp revival in entry-segment demand and dismantling the notion that buyers were jumping straight to SUVs.
Rahul Bharti, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Affairs at Maruti Suzuki India, said the idea that small cars had lost relevance because first-time buyers were directly choosing more expensive SUVs “never held up to data scrutiny” and has now been conclusively disproven.
“Before GST, many people were spreading a narrative that small cars were not being purchased because entry customers were directly buying expensive SUVs, so the segment did not need support,” Bharti said during the company’s November sales call. “If that were true, the industry should have been growing at more than 20 percent. Instead, it was stagnant at near zero. Something was not consistent.”
He credited the GST rate rationalisation announced in September for restoring affordability and reviving demand at the bottom of the market. “Thanks to this GST benefit, the narrative has now been proved totally incorrect. The small car customer is bouncing back in full strength,” he said.
Small cars contributed to a 36 percent retail surge for Maruti in November, Bharti added, emphasising that only 3 percent of India’s population currently owns a car. “Some companies may want to focus only on the juicy, premium segments, but for a market leader, leadership also means responsibility. We have to enable people from the 97 percent club to experience the joy of mobility.”
Maruti’s sharp counter to what it calls a “wrong narrative” comes amid renewed debate within the industry over India’s small car policy, with Maruti positioning itself firmly as the defender of the segment and of entry-level mobility.
Network Stock at Just 19 Days
Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer for Marketing and Sales, underlined the strength of the recovery with fresh numbers. Maruti’s bookings in November grew 21%, with pending orders at 1.5 lakh units. Overall retail sales rose 31% year-on-year.
Banerjee said that despite entering November with just 19 days of dealer stock–the lowest in years–the company managed record dispatches of 174,593 units, the highest November volume in Maruti’s 40-year history. “Eight of our models had zero stock in the factory. Everything was dispatched to dealers,” he said. “The market is still very bullish.”
Small cars are showing the strongest momentum: retail sales of the Alto K10, S-Presso, Celerio and WagonR grew 37% in November. Models taxed at 18% under GST grew 38%, while the 40% GST bracket grew 17%.
As of the start of December, Maruti’s network stock remains tight at 19 days, with around 80,000 vehicles at dealerships and another 40,000 in transit. “We are working to meet customer demand as quickly as possible,” Banerjee added.
Exports Hit Record High
Alongside the domestic rebound, Maruti clocked its highest-ever monthly exports in November, shipping 46,057 vehicles, a figure that Bharti described as “equally bright” as the small-car domestic revival.
He noted that export growth for the month stood at 61 percent, although the jump was partly inflated due to a delayed shipment from the previous month. “A more representative figure is about 35.6 percent growth for the April–November period,” he said. Maruti has shipped 2,84,820 vehicles so far this fiscal.
The company’s global strategy is still anchored in compact cars. “Our top five export models are all compact cars, within the four-metre definition,” Bharti said, adding that the eVitara has crossed 10,000 cumulative exports across 26 countries. Until last month, Maruti held a 46 percent share of India’s total passenger-vehicle exports, reinforcing its position as the country’s largest car exporter.