Even as the Indian SUV segment continues to excite the market and attract more buyers amid production constraints, the spotlight seems to have moved towards one brand recently – Mahindra & Mahindra – which has picked up good sales momentum with its new launches to challenge the top two players.

While Maruti & Hyundai continue to dominate the SUV segment (includes MUVs, MPVs etc), there has been a fierce battle between Mahindra & Mahindra and Kia Motors for the Number Three position. However, Mahindra has managed to hold on to the third position with slightly higher sales than Kia.

But now Mahindra has upped the ante in the SUV market with an impressive set of new launches that come with high safety ratings. Its recent vehicles such as all-new 4x4 SUV Thar and 7-seater SUV XUV 700 carry 4-star and 5-star safety ratings from Global NCAP, a UK-based non-profit safety and testing organisation. Both the vehicles have attracted tremendous response and have helped Mahindra widen its sales gap with Kia. In particular, Mahindra XUV 700 has been a big hit and has secured 70,000+ bookings till date.

In October 2021, Mahindra’s total sales in the segment stood at 20,034 units, the second highest after Maruti’s volumes of 27,081 units.

Hyundai sold 18,538 SUVs, while Kia’s sales were at 16,331. Of course, all players are facing severe production constraints due to chip shortages. During the April-October 2021 period, Mahindra’s total sales stood at 112,050 units, while Kia’s volumes were at 104,714 units.

A year ago, the sales gap between the two was about 1,000 units. So, new launches have been helping Mahindra to boost its sales and market share in the segment. With its SUV order book at about 1.6 lakh units, Mahindra is expected to sustain the momentum going forward.

Also, with a strong pipeline of new vehicles, Mahindra is now gunning for leadership position in the SUV market. In fact, Mahindra was a leader in the UV segment till about 5 years ago. But the launch of compact and mid-SUVs changed the market landscape and the company lost its dominant position.

Mahindra has planned 13 new launches, including 8 electric SUVs, across existing and new brands between 2020 and 2027 with an eye on leadership position in the segment.

“M&M brand in India is synonymous with ‘real’ SUV maker with the company making a strong comeback in the market with its core SUV product Thar in 2020. It has now been creating a buzz with its all new XUV700 launch. It also aims to roll out a hybrid version of the SUV by 2021. For some time, compact SUVs remained a major battleground for most OEMs in the market. But with every leading OEM well-positioned in the sub-compact/compact SUV segment, bigger or core SUVs segment looks to be the new battleground – a segment which is M&M’s core expertise,” says Bakar Sadik Agwan, Senior Automotive Consulting Analyst at GlobalData.

This year has witnessed the rollout of a slew of mid-size and large SUVs -- Hyundai Alcazar, M&M Bolero Neo, M&M XUV700 and Tata Safari. M&M is also expected to introduce its new version of Scorpio during this fiscal as part of its mid-term launch programmes.