Maruti Suzuki A-star set for Africa, Latin America launch

Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) plans to export its successful hatchback A-Star to new international markets, such as Africa and Latin America. This decision comes as a result of increasing demand for small cars in the global market.

A report in The Economic Times said that Maruti Suzuki intends to export 1.5 lakh units, which includes other Maruti models, in 2009.

In 2008, the company had exported half their present target. Maruti’s export tally reached 15,978 units in April-May 2009, courtesy the Maruti Suzuki A-Star.

Maruti Suzuki already exports the Maruti Suzuki A-Star cars to France, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and other major European markets.

“After its success in Europe and sufficient backlog of bookings, we have finalized strategy to enter other markets”, MSI executive officer (marketing & sales) Mayank Pareek was quoted as saying.

“A-Star comes with the new highly fuel-efficient K-series petrol engine, which is Euro-4 and Euro-5 complaint and will allow us to market the car throughout the
world”, he added.

The Maruti Suzuki A-Star was primarily manufactured by Maruti for the European market. It was sold under various brands, such as Alto, Pixo and Celerio, in different markets.

The company plans to sell 70,000 units of the Maruti Suzuki A-Star to Europe and other than those 30,000 units to Nissan Motor Co., which markets cars like Nissan Pixo in Europe.

Along with Chile, Mexico, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Nepal and around 50 other markets, Maruti will sell cars in Algeria, its biggest market in Africa. The company aims to export 200,000 thousand cars by the year 2010-11.

In June-end 2009, Maruti Suzuki launched the A-Star as the Suzuki Celerio in Morocco, in three variants. It also launched the Suzuki Celerio in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.