July 28th, 2010 
Nitin 
After drop in their market share, Maruti Suzuki is hoping that its tried and tested Alto model will bring back the lost glory. Maruti Suzuki Alto is largest selling model in India and the company is revamping the model heavily. Maruti Alto is to be launched with a new 1.0L K-series engine in the first week of August. The new Maruti Alto will have a 1,000cc engine. A senior Maruti official said that the company hopes to expand overall sales for the lower A-segment, comprising M800, Nano, Alto and the standard variant of Santro, by at least 25 per cent. The company is also expecting to sell an additional 7,500 units of Alto every month.
Maruti Alto will be priced at Rs. 3 lakh and above with ARAI certification of delivering mileage of 20kmpl. This means MSIL is gearing up for tough competition coming in the market. There are new entrants slated to enter the Indian car market in next 12-18 months.
Last year Maruti Suzuki India had sold 765,526 units in the domestic market. It also had a market share of 50.1 per cent. With additional 60,000 units of the new Alto and an additional 30,000 units from other models, in the remaining eight months of the current financial year, Maruti expects to clock close to 860,000 units in 2010-11.
The official of the company also said that the new Alto will be priced a notch above the existing Alto and will meet expectations of people who have been postponing purchase so far due to absence of an aspirational product in this category. The launch of the new Alto comes at a time when a series of Indian car makers have launched new products. In the first half of 2010, there were six new launches which included Beat, Figo, Polo and the new WagonR.
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