Festive alert: Toyota to drive in compact SUVs

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) plans to launch its compact SUV, based on Maruti Suzuki's Vitara Brezza, in the upcoming festive season, according to a senior company official.

In March 2018, Toyota Motor Corp and Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) had concluded a basic agreement for supplying hybrid and other vehicles to each other in the Indian market.

As part of the arrangement, TKM already sources Baleno from MSI and sells it as Glanza after making certain changes in the 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 meter compact SUV category. And this segment alone is now 10-11% of the total passenger vehicle sales," TKM Senior Vice President sales and marketing Naveen Soni told PTI.

In fact, compact SUV is the only segment which has shown growth in the last year, he added.

"So we have been evaluating this segment for a long time and now the time has come that we are announcing that this festive season we will have our own compact SUV in the market," Soni noted.

He said SUV sales have been growing in the country and in that too sales of the entry level or sub four meter SUVs have been witnessing a steady growth in the domestic market. It may be due to road conditions or other factors, but the fact remains that the compact SUV segment has been growing, Soni said.

"New products bring excitement into the market. Irrespective of the 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.