Maruti Suzuki mulls assembling SUV Grand Vitara by next year in India

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki is thinking to locally assemble its sports utility vehicle Maruti Grand Vitara by next year, as it wants to bring an advanced version of the SUV to arrest falling sales. According to further sources, The company is seriously considering to bring in an advanced version of Vitara into India, mainly to arrest the falling sales of the SUV.

MSI's plans would be dependent on the market response to the advanced version of the SUV to be introduced in 2010. Maruti Grand Vitara is available for Rs 16.67-17.97 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi) with a 2.4 litre petrol engine in both manual as well as automatic transmission. In the recent months, sales of Maruti Grand Vitara is falling drastically. During April-September period, sales of the SUV fell nearly 70 per cent to just 59 units from 194 units in the year-ago period.

Even after launching an advanced version of Maruti Grand Vitara in July 2009, the company failed to revive the demand for the model. In September, sales declined by 53 per cent to only 9 units as against 19 units in the same month last year. MSI's parent Suzuki has sold over 25 lakh units of Maruti Grand Vitara across the worlds since its launch.  Toyota Prius the hybrid passenger car, is expected to launch in India by early 2010.

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