How Maruti Suzuki Plans To Go Closer To Small Town Customers With Nexa Studio
Maruti Suzuki’s big leap in distribution came with in 2015, with the simultaneous launch of the S-Cross and the NEXA line-up of premium car dealerships. In fact, the S-Cross was the first Maruti Suzuki car to be sold from NEXA dealerships. 9 years and 500 NEXA dealerships across 303 Indian cities later, Maruti Suzuki has come up with yet another big push. Say hello to Nexa Studio.
With the NEXA Studio, the country’s largest car maker will target smaller towns and rural areas of India, and give customers there the complete premium car experience through a brand new initiative.
NEXA Studio showrooms will be much smaller than the regular NEXA dealerships, and will come up across India’s smaller towns, bringing the entire range of premium NEXA cars closer to customers living away from the bigger cities.
Over the next 4 months, Maruti Suzuki plans to launch no less than 100 new NEXA Studio mini-showrooms across smaller cities and towns of India. The first such showroom was just inaugurated yesterday at Kolar, a town that’s about 70 kilometers away from Bengaluru. The entire range of NEXA cars will be available on display at the new range of showrooms, which will also have sales and spares outlets attached to them.
Test drives of all NEXA cars will be available at the new showrooms, allowing customers to experience the cars fully before purchase. These showrooms will measure about 1,200 square feet in dimension, and will have the service and spares attached. The idea is to sell 25-30 cars each month from these showrooms. Going forward, nearly every small town of India will have a NEXA Studio dealership, allowing Maruti Suzuki to take its premium line-up of cars to every corner of the country.
Currently, the NEXA line up Maruti Suzuki dealerships sell a range of car that will suit a wide range of buyer budgets. The entry-level offering is the Ignis hatchback, whose prices start from Rs. 5.84 lakh At the very top of the line-up is the 25 lakh rupee Invicto Hybrid MPV, which is essentially a badge engineered Toyota Innova HyCross. In between, there’s the Baleno hatchback, the Fronx Compact Crossover, the Ciaz C-Segment sedan the Jimny 4X4, the Grand Vitara Compact SUV and the XL6 MPV.
Maruti Suzuki also has two other dealership networks – Arena, which sells affordable cars to private cars, and Maruti Suzuki Commercial, which sells taxi versions of popular cars such as the WagonR, Dzire and Ertiga, and the Super Carry pick up truck. The Arena line up of dealerships sell the Alto K10, S-Presso, Celerio, WagonR, Swift, Eeco Dzire, Ertiga and Brezza.
New Dzire coming
Maruti Suzuki will close 2024 with the launch of an all-new 4th generation version of India’s best selling sedan – the Dzire. The all-new Dzire, which will share its platform and parts with the recently launched Swift, will continue to be a sub-4 meter compact sedan.
The front end is likely to get minor stylistic changes to differentiate it from the 2024 Swift while the rear will get a totally fresh design. On the inside, the new Dzire is expected to offer a beige colour theme, signifying its more premium positioning.
The mechanicals are expected to be shared with the 2024 Swift, which means that the newly introduced 1.2 liter-3 cylinder Z12 petrol engine will power the car. A CNG variant will also be launched, but a few months down the line. Manual and AMT gearbox options will be offered.