Maruti Suzuki Baleno surpasses Hyundai i20 in November 2015 sales chart; Swift’s production slashed to meet demands of Baleno
Maruti Suzuki Baleno premium hatchback was launched on the 26th of October 2015 at a starting price of Rs. 4.99 lakh(ex-showroom Delhi). It had shown glimpses of taking the sales charts by storm as by the end of October as Maruti retailed Baleno at 4,229 units – that is within just five days of lifting the cloak off the premium car.
One of its main rivals has been the Hyundai Elite i20 which sold just a little over 11,000 units on the same month. Being a regular in the top ten monthly sales charts, the premium offering from the South Korean manufacturer averages about 10,000 units every month.
But the Elite i20’s reign of being the country’s highest selling premium hatchback has finally been toppled by the Maruti Suzuki Baleno as predicted. India’s largest car maker, Maruti, has been selling Baleno as the second product from the newly-established Nexa premium showrooms.
Within two weeks of its arrival, Baleno garnered an outstanding 21,000 bookings from customers and 56,000 people have visited Nexa showrooms during that period. All these statistics cast an eye on where Baleno would end up at the end of its first full month of sales and to the surprise of none it’s achieved a staggering sales number in November.
Maruti Suzuki Baleno flew past its biggest nemesis Elite i20 and slotted in sixth by turning a huge number of 9,074 units against the Hyundai hatchback’s 8,264 units. Nearly 3,000 down from previous month, the Elite i20’s sales decline is apparently driven by the high-riding Baleno.
Baleno has become the most sold car in any month that launched in 2015 with these outstanding figures. However, another significant blow was thrown at Maruti’s third best-seller Swift due to the uprise of its premium sibling Baleno.
In comparison to the total sale of 17,769 units in October, Swift has received only 11,859 customers in November – almost 6,000 units less retailed which in turn means the buyers are preferring more of Baleno than the Swift. Consequently, Maruti is being put on a position to cut down the production of the Swift in favour of ramping up the manufacturing of Baleno to fulfill customer demands.
The Maruti Suzuki Baleno premium hatchback is powered by a 1.2-litre K-Series petrol engine producing 83bhp and 115Nm of torque whilst the 1.3-litre DDiS diesel engine makes 74bhp and 190Nm of torque. Both engines are mated to a five-speed manual transmission and additionally CVT automatic gearbox is available as a petrol variant.
The diesel engine’s fuel consumption claim from Maruti is at 27.39 km/l whereas the petrol is rated at 21.4 km/l. The Baleno measures 3,995mm in length, 1,745mm in width and 1,500mm in height with a wheel base of 2,520mm. It accommodates for 339 litres of boot space and comes equipped with loads of features in supplement to ABS, EBD and dual front airbags being offered as standard across all variants.
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