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Toyota To Launch Its Version Of Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza In 2020

Toyota Kirloskar plans to enter India’s compact SUV segment in the upcoming festive season, a senior company official says.

(Source: Vitara Brezza’s official Twitter handle)
(Source: Vitara Brezza’s official Twitter handle)

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd. plans to launch its compact SUV, based on the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, in the upcoming festive season, a senior company official has said.

In March 2018, Toyota Motor Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp. had concluded a basic agreement for supplying hybrid and other vehicles to each other in the Indian market. Toyota Kirloskar currently sources the Baleno hatchback from Maruti Suzuki and sells it as Glanza after making certain changes in design and features.

The automaker is now ready to bring in the second product under this arrangement during the early part of the upcoming festive season. "India loves the sub-four metre compact SUV category. And this segment alone is now 10-11% of the total passenger vehicle sales," Naveen Soni, senior vice president (sales and marketing) at Toyota Kirloskar, told the Press Trust of India.

In fact, compact SUV is the only segment which has shown growth in the last year. "So we have been evaluating this segment for a long time and now the time has come,” Soni said. “We are announcing that this festive season, we will have our own compact SUV in the market.”

SUV sales have been growing in India. Within that segment, sub-four metre SUVs are witnessing steady growth in demand. That may be due to road conditions or other factors, but the fact remains that the compact SUV segment has been growing.

"New products bring excitement into the market. Irrespective of market conditions, new products have helped the market to grow for different manufacturers. For us it is important, because we were not present in this growing segment," Soni said.

He expressed hope that by the time the product is launched, things may become better in terms of the pandemic situation in the country.

Toyota Kirloskar sold more than 25,000 Glanza units in the last one year. The model’s share in the overall sales of the company has been increasing. According to Soni, 40-50% of Glanza customers are first-time buyers of a Toyota product. He now expects a similar response to the rebadged Vitara Brezza.

The company is looking at more and more differentiation in terms of look and feel of the upcoming model as compared with Vitara Brezza. "We want to give the Toyota experience to our customers," Soni said.