Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) introduced to the car market in India, their latest model “Ritz” belonging to the Super hatch variety on Friday. This is their second offering after “Swift” in the same segment, which enjoys a market share of 75% and competes with this new model in their sales.

The salient features of “Ritz” are it has both diesel and petrol versions. The first is priced at Rs.4.65 to Rs.4.99 lakhs and the latter is fixed at Rs.3.9 to Rs.4.8 lakhs, when they hit the road.  The new car model has identical 1.3 litres multijet diesel engine as that of “Swift” and the petrol engine will be powered by a newly-developed K-series engine of 1.2 litre capacity. This innovation will save the buyers somewhere around Rs.10,000 – since sub-1.2 litre engine will be levied with lower excise duty, compared to “Swift”.

Shinzo Nakanishi, Managing Director of Maruti Suzuki India explained that the company wants to expand the product portfolio to meet with different customer needs, not to miss any one of them. He also hoped that both Swift and Ritz, irrespective of marginal differences will expand their market, as was the case with Zen and Wagon R from their own product-line.

A lot more activity in the super hatch segment cars is on the anvil, what with Honda readying their product Jazz and Fiat with their Grande Punto to be released next month. Also other manufacturers like Nissan, Volkswagen and Toyota are in the final stages of their products in the same segment.  The super hatch segment currently is overflowing with Chevrolet’s Aveo and U-Va; Hyundai’s Getz and i20 as also Skoda Fabia.

Swift has met with success in the indigenous market, ever since it was launched in 2005 and so the Company is elusive in its expectations about the same success of Ritz, as it has been priced rather aggressively.

Managing Executive Officer (Engineering and R&D), MSIL, I.V. Rao, said that in the prevailing market conditions they have a flexible target for this year and was sure to meet any demand generated with their capacity utilisation. He contended that the similarity of features in both Swift and Ritz enabled them to keep the manufacturing costs low. The new model Ritz has 95% indigenous contents.

Ford India has already registered the name “Ritz” in India and so it can not be used by Maruti Suzuki, who are going to float their “Ritz” in the name “Splash” in the overseas countries.

Via