After playing a long waiting game, earlier in June, Maruti Suzuki finally launched the Jimny 4x4 SUV in India, priced between Rs. 12.74 lakh and Rs. 15.05 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). And despite the polarising opinions around the Jimny pricing, the SUV certainly seems to have grabbed people’s attention. Bookings for the SUV began after its debut at the 2023 Auto Expo, and Maruti Suzuki has already bagged over 31,000 orders for the off-road SUV.
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In a conversation with car&bike, Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India said that before the price announcement the Jimny used to receive around 90 bookings per day, which has now gone up to over 150 units in a single day. However, on the flip side, customers buying the Jimny will have to face long waiting periods as well. Commenting on the waiting period for the Jimny Srivastava said, “The waiting period of Jimny, judging by the current production levels, will be about 7-8 months.”
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With regards to model preference, the Maruti Suzuki Executive said that before the price announcement, the demand ratio between manual and automatic variants was 50:50. However, post the price announcement, the demand for the manual version has gone up. Even though the demand for the automatic variants has come down, Srivastava feels they are still quite comparable in terms of overall volumes.
Addressing the debate around the pricing strategy for the Jimny Srivastava said, “I think many of the consumers initially on the social media, and also some of the analysts, said that the pricing was high, higher than expected. But I think judging by the bookings that we have, the message which has gone to the consumers is that when you compare like to like then this seems to be a good price. And I think the sense of it being a higher price is being built because they compare it with the Thar’s starting price of 10.54 lakh. But that vehicle is a 3-door vehicle, it’s a two-wheel drive, it has two airbags compared to 6 airbags in the Jimny.”
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Srivastava says that when compared to the four-wheel drive version of the Thar, the Jimny is still Rs. 1.13 lakh cheaper. Furthermore, he feels that while there might be expectations among consumers for a more affordable two-wheel drive version, given the basic nature and positioning of the Jimny, the company decided it should have a four-wheel drive. And the company has no immediate plans to introduce a 2WD version any time soon.
