Facelifts, new models and variant introductions over the last few months are helping Japanese car makers see a smart resurgence in India sales. The higher product activity has resulted in a year-on-year market share gain exceeding 5% for Japanese OEMs in September 2022. In August and July, this gain was 2% and 3%, respectively.

The primary driver has been Maruti Suzuki, which improved its market share by 7.8% in September. This gain though came at the expense of Korean, European, American and Chinese makers. Indian-origin OEMs-Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra-combined grew their market share by 2.3% year-on-year during this period, according to Jato Dynamics estimates.

The onslaught of new products planned by Maruti and Toyota Motor Corporation through their partnership over the next two years could drive some share gains for Japanese OEMs, say experts.

Introduction of new models has always led to renewed consumer interest in these OEM brands. “We did see the impact of the new model introduction in September of the Alto K10 and Grand Vitara from Maruti Suzuki and the Hyryder from Toyota. This coupled with better availability of vehicles and the base effect of last year is clearly evident in the September numbers,” said Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director at Maruti Suzuki.