Nexa brings many new customers for Maruti but the task is still Herculean

Launched with much fanfare, Maruti Suzuki's upmarket showroom called Nexa has completed a year. 

The company claims that nearly half of customers who bought a premium car at Nexa were not Maruti owners earlier. RS Kalsi, Executive director, Marketing and sales said, “Over half (51%) of the customers who brought the car at Nexa were not customers of Maruti Suzuki at that point, indicating that through Nexa, we are able to attract new categories of customers.”

This is surely no mean achievement given Maruti's image in the Indian market as a 'small-car' maker. Beginning from Kizashi, SX4, Grand Vitara, etc, the company has not really sold cars in the segments that go beyond the hatches. 

In the past year of functioning, Nexa has grown to 150 showrooms across 94 Indian cities. Nearly 1,00,000 cars have been sold from the NEXA portfolio which accounts 10% of Maruti's total domestic sales.

This, however, does not seem to be enough. 

The company has targeted to sell 20 lakh cars from Nexa showrooms by 2020. That is 19 lakh cars in nearly three and a half years, or, nearly 1460 cars a day.  

To increase sales and reach this goal, the company plans to enhance purchase and ownership experience by 'enriching customer experience beyond showrooms' as well. “We will accurate new experience around fashion & lifestyle, music and travel. This experience will touch the lives of customers through international music festivals, fashion/styling sessions and long distance drives. Rather than limiting ourselves to selling cars, our aim is to forge relationships over the period of ownership,” added Kalsi.

The company has projected that Nexa will reach around 250 showrooms by March 2017, and is expected to contribute around 15% of MSIL’s sales by 2020.

Presently under the Nexa roof, the cars which are sold is cross-over S-Cross and premium hatchback called the Baleno.

The company has posted a 23.02% rise in standalone net profit of Rs 1486.2 crore, beating the estimates for the quarter ended on June 30.