Brezza beats Creta to gain top spot in May SUV sales

New Delhi, June 14: Within months of Maruti's entry in the fast-growing compact sports utility vehicle segment, the company'scompactSUVVitara Brezza has become the highest sellingvehicleamongalltheSUVs and compact SUVs combined, beating Hyundai's Creta by a thin margin. While Hyundai sold 7,057 units of CretainMay,Marutisold7,193units of Vitara Brezza.

Launched in March, Brezza has an average waiting time of over 20 weeks, which makes it highly possible that it will be able to maintain its leadership in the coming months.

The customers booking the top variant of the model, the ZDI and ZDI+ are being informed at dealerships that they will have to wait for up to 35 weeks. While the company has alreadysoldaround20,000units of the new model, it has a queue of 46,000 bookings yet to be served. On the other hand, HyundaiCretahasseenitswaiting period drop to around six weeks. A few months after its launch, Hyundai's Creta had seen a surging demand with waitingperiodof over20weeks. The increasing competition in the overall SUV market is evident from the fact that after the launch of Vitara Brezza, Ford cutpricesof itsbestsellingcompact SUV EcoSport by up to R1.12 lakh. In 2014-15, EcoSport was the fourth largest selling utility vehicle with sales volumes of 52,000.

Japanese carmaker Honda too has entered the segment with the BR-V. Honda has now priced its new offering in a way that it stands out to be cheaper compared to the Creta as well as Duster when it comes to diesel varaints and is priced in between the two leading models for the petrol variants.

The utility vehicle market has largely been dominated by M&M and its model Bolero has been the largest selling SUV for many years in a row. With the launch of Hyundai Creta in July 2015, Mahindra Bolero was dislodged from the position of the top selling SUV. Bolero again took over Creta in October 2015 only to lose the top position in January 2016.

Utility vehicles have become the preferred choice of many buyers in the urban markets which has turned the segment into a driving factor for passenger vehicle sales in recent months. While passenger car sales have remained muted in the past few months, utility vehicle sales have been growing at a strong rate.