Maruti-Suzuki Ignis - Failure Guaranteed, yet again, just like S-cross, A-star and Ritz

Why does a supremely successful manufacturer like Maruti-Suzuki end up making failed products, sometimes? A company which claims that it understands the Indian car market and the customer like the back-of-its-hand, still it cannot avoid sinking in 1000 Crore rupees in development costs of a failed product every two years. That's because just like every other automobile manufacturer in the world, Maruti-Suzuki is also largely clueless about what customers want, but because they have 2000+ dealerships and because they were the only Japanese car maker who was allowed to establish themselves by Gandhis for a decade before 1991 economic reforms, they are able to sell even the most generic products in huge numbers.

So why are we putting our neck out to bet against the behemoth of the Indian automotive industry? It's because we believe that we understand the Indian car buyers way better than all the automotive manufacturers, combined. That does sound like a tall claim, but this is where we want to start proving it. We promise that if the Ignis succeeds, we will publish a public apology to Maruti-Suzuki. So what is the criteria that we would define for its success? Well anything selling upwards of 10,000 units per month has to be counted as successful. If it sells around 7000 units per month like the Celerio, we would still count it as successful. However, if it self less than 2500 units a month like the S-cross, A-star or Ritz, it is roughly 1 car per sales & sevice touch point and that would definitely be counted as a failure.

So why do we think that the customers will reject the supposedly up and coming micro-SUV segment vehicle from India's favourite car maker? Well, firstly however much Maruti may hope, customers are not going to perceive it as a SUV. Making a car tall and boxy does not necessarily make it an SUV. Secondly, it is smaller in length and width than the Baleno hatchback and even the Swift. This means, it's 'Prestige' factor is bound to be somewhere between that of the Celerio and Swift, closest to that of the WagonR. Thirdly, it is going to be more expensive than the Swift and Baleno and maybe even the Dzire, because it uses higher quality components and switchgear from Suzuki's future parts bin. This means that its 'prestige-to-price' ratio is going to be really poor. The offering could be verbally explained as 'Ritz facelift at the price of a Ciaz' in the words of the prospective customers. Which makes it quite obvious that there's gonna be very few buyers for it.

If you disagree with us, let's get the debate going in the comments below. As for the veracity of our claim let's wait and watch how it fares in monthly sales reports till six months post it's launch.