Sierra Will Help Us Achieve 20-25% Market Share of the SUV Segment: Tata Motors' Shailesh Chandra

Tata Motors is betting big on the reborn Sierra, positioning it as the brand’s next major growth engine in the SUV space. With SUVs already accounting for a bulk of the company’s passenger vehicle sales, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles MD & CEO Shailesh Chandra believes the Sierra can push the company into a new league. “We are today 16-17% market share in SUVs. With Sierra we feel confident that we will now be somewhere between 20-25% market share. It should really help us plug the gap that we had in our portfolio," he said. 

Chandra expects this car to add significant volumes for Tata Motors. The Sierra enters a fiercely competitive segment dominated by the Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos. But he is confident that the new model will carve out a strong space for itself. "The Sierra will be the most compelling value proposition and therefore it should drive good volumes and not only take a part of the share of the current mid SUV segment which is about 40-45,000 per month," he said. 

Strengthening the Sweet Spot

Tata Motors has been strategically building its SUV portfolio in the segments driving the highest demand. “We keep strengthening our portfolio in line with where the sweet spot of demand has been shifting and two areas where we have strengthened ourselves very well is the sub-compact SUV and compact SUV, and the third high volume, high revenue pool segment has been the mid-SUV," he said. The Sierra, Chandra believes, will strike at the heart of this mid-SUV opportunity.

Will It Cannibalise the Harrier? 

According to Chandra, customers do not think in tight segment boundaries. “Whenever a customer is thinking of buying a car there is a budget in mind. But in that budget… the customer is not thinking of a mid SUV or a high SUV. They are thinking I have this money and I am looking for the best car for that money. So they explore all the cars around the adjacent areas also. So they will see high SUV also, they will see mid SUV also, maybe compact SUV also," he explains. 

According to him, the Sierra’s wide-ranging appeal will help pull customers from multiple price bands. “The car will attract the midsize SUV footprint. A large section of people who have been thinking of mid SUV, they will see a step up from the options that are there. And coming at a price which is very aggressive, I think it is that whole segment of mid SUV which will be the prominent one," he said. 

While some buyers may come from the high-SUV category due to nostalgia for the iconic Sierra nameplate, Chandra believes the Harrier and Sierra will still cater to distinct customer profiles.

“So I still believe that there is some level of clear distinctness between who buys a Harrier versus who will buy a Sierra. Sierra will have more first time buyers also. There will be some level of overlap nobody can deny. But Harrier is slightly different when we see the customers from a styling choice perspective also," he said. 

He also points out that SUV buyers have polarized tastes: “Everybody does not want a boxy look… globally you will see that there is a dynamic design of SUV and then there is a traditional boxy design."

Segment Expansion Expected

Chandra believes that strong products have the ability to grow segments. "We have seen in the compact SUV segment that has expanded from 30,000 to 80,000. So good products do expand the segment," he said. 

Calling the Sierra revival a major responsibility, Chandra says the team was conscious of the legacy attached to the nameplate. “It was a big responsibility on us, because it was an iconic brand, discontinued maybe 25 years back and at that point in time, it was very ahead of its time. It was the first car which defined what lifestyle SUVs are in the country," he said. 

The new Sierra, he adds, balances heritage and modernity. “It was more important to make it relevant for Gen Y and Gen Z and you will see that on one hand, it keeps the DNA of the OG Sierra from a silhouette perspective, upright, boxy, wrap around glass but from inside, you see the premiumness, the whole spaciousness and the tech stack is a notch ahead of what you see in this segment or even higher segments," he says.