Maruti Suzuki Plans 7 New SUVs in Next 5 Years, Eyes 30 Lakh Annual Sales Milestone
- Team Autopunditz
- 5 minutes ago
- 6 min read
India’s largest carmaker is preparing one of its biggest SUV product offensives yet, while simultaneously expanding manufacturing capacity, exports and its multi-powertrain strategy.
Maruti Suzuki India has officially confirmed plans to introduce seven SUVs over the next five years, as the automaker looks to strengthen its presence in one of the fastest-growing segments of India's passenger vehicle market.
The announcement forms part of Maruti Suzuki's FY2025-26 Annual Integrated Report, aptly themed “The Next Million, New Momentum.”
The strategy goes far beyond adding more SUVs. Maruti Suzuki is preparing for its next phase of growth through a combination of new products, expanded manufacturing capacity, exports, small cars and multiple powertrain technologies.
Having already crossed 20 lakh annual vehicle sales for three consecutive years, Maruti is now moving towards the next major milestone — potentially taking annual volumes towards the 30 lakh-unit mark.
7 Maruti Suzuki SUVs Coming Over Next Five Years
Maruti Suzuki Managing Director & CEO Hisashi Takeuchi has confirmed that the company plans to introduce seven SUVs during the next five years.
The move should substantially broaden Maruti Suzuki's presence across India's SUV market.
The manufacturer's current SUV/crossover portfolio already spans products such as:
Fronx
Brezza
Victoris
Grand Vitara
Jimny
e VITARA
However, Maruti Suzuki has not officially disclosed the identities of all seven upcoming SUVs.
Media reports and previous industry developments suggest that the future portfolio could include a combination of entirely new models and major lifecycle updates.
Among the possibilities being discussed are a new entry-level/sub-4-metre SUV positioned in the high-volume compact SUV space, along with future updates or replacements for existing models such as the Fronx and Jimny.
These individual models, however, should be treated as expected products until confirmed by Maruti Suzuki.
Why SUVs Are Crucial for Maruti Suzuki
Maruti Suzuki historically dominated India's small-car market with models such as the Alto, WagonR and Swift.
But the Indian passenger vehicle market has undergone a fundamental change over the past decade, with customers increasingly gravitating towards SUVs and crossover-style vehicles.
Maruti responded by expanding aggressively through products including the Brezza, Fronx and Grand Vitara.
The next seven-SUV offensive suggests the company intends to fill more gaps in its portfolio and defend its position against increasingly aggressive competition from Tata Motors, Mahindra, Hyundai, Kia and others.
Instead of depending on a small number of SUV nameplates, Maruti could eventually have products addressing several price and size categories.
Maruti Suzuki's Next Big Target: The 30 Lakh Milestone
Maruti Suzuki registered its highest-ever annual sales of approximately 24.22 lakh vehicles in FY2025-26, including record exports of approximately 4.47 lakh units.
The company has now crossed the two-million annual sales level for three consecutive years.
With multiple growth drivers coming together, Maruti Suzuki says it is optimistic about reaching its next million-vehicle milestone earlier than previously anticipated.
That effectively puts the 30 lakh annual vehicle level into focus as the company's next major volume milestone.
Importantly, Maruti Suzuki's official communication describes this as its “next million” milestone rather than providing a specific FY2030-31 commitment for exactly 30 lakh annual sales.
FY2025-26 Was a Record Year
Maruti Suzuki's FY2025-26 performance provides the base for this expansion.
Metric | FY2025-26 |
Total vehicle sales | 24,22,713 units |
Domestic sales | 19,74,939 units |
Exports | 4,47,774 units |
Net Sales | ₹1,74,369.5 crore |
Net Profit | ₹14,445.4 crore |
Maruti Suzuki's exports were particularly significant.
The company remained India's largest passenger vehicle exporter and said it accounted for 49% of India's total passenger vehicle exports during FY2025-26.
Its first battery-electric vehicle, the e VITARA, was also exported to 44 countries.
Indian Car Market Could Reach 61–63 Lakh Units
Maruti Suzuki is also becoming more optimistic about India's medium-term passenger vehicle growth.
Chairman R.C. Bhargava said the company currently estimates that India's car industry could expand to approximately 61 lakh to 63 lakh units annually by FY2030-31.
This would represent a significant increase over today's market.
Interestingly, Maruti believes the next phase of growth will not be driven by SUVs alone.
The company expects the small-car segment to grow significantly faster during the next five years than it did during the preceding five-year period.
That makes Maruti Suzuki's future strategy particularly interesting.
Rather than abandoning entry-level cars in favour of SUVs, the company appears to be preparing to pursue both segments simultaneously.
Small Cars Are Still Central to Maruti's Strategy
India's entry-level car segment has faced sustained pressure in recent years due to rising vehicle prices, regulatory costs and changing customer preferences.
Maruti Suzuki, however, believes the category still has considerable long-term potential.
The company's FY2025-26 results also highlighted strong demand following changes in taxation, with Maruti reporting approximately 1.90 lakh pending customer orders at the end of the financial year.
Around 1.30 lakh of those pending orders were reportedly from the small-car segment.
For Maruti, therefore, SUVs may provide one major growth engine while affordable cars provide another.
Bigger Manufacturing Capacity Coming
Selling close to three million vehicles annually will require considerably more manufacturing capacity.
Maruti Suzuki has consequently accelerated its capacity-expansion programme.
The company's management has indicated that an additional 5 lakh units of manufacturing capacity is being added during FY2026-27.
Capacity additions across Maruti Suzuki's manufacturing network are expected to help support higher domestic sales as well as growing exports.
The strategy gives Maruti three major volume levers:
Domestic demand + exports + manufacturing expansion.
Multi-Powertrain Strategy Instead of EV-Only Approach
Another significant element of Maruti Suzuki's strategy is its insistence that India will require multiple technologies to achieve its long-term decarbonisation goals.
Consequently, Maruti is unlikely to depend exclusively on battery-electric vehicles.
Its wider technology roadmap can potentially encompass:
Petrol
CNG
Strong hybrid
Battery electric vehicles
Flex-fuel technologies
Biogas/CBG-based mobility solutions
Other alternative-energy technologies
The launch and exports of the e VITARA have already established Maruti's entry into the mass-market BEV space.
At the same time, the Grand Vitara has demonstrated the company's strong-hybrid strategy, while CNG remains an important part of its mass-market portfolio.
This technology-neutral approach differentiates Maruti's strategy from manufacturers pursuing more aggressive EV-only expansion.
Maruti Is Also Betting Big on Biogas
Maruti Suzuki is additionally exploring biogas as part of India's pathway towards reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The company's board has approved the first phase of an initiative involving four biogas plants, with an investment of around ₹561 crore.
Maruti believes locally produced biogas could eventually substitute part of India's
imported CNG requirement while creating useful agricultural and energy-sector by-products.
While this initiative sits outside the immediate seven-SUV programme, it illustrates the breadth of Maruti's future mobility strategy.
Exports Could Become an Even Bigger Growth Engine
Exports are another increasingly important part of Maruti Suzuki's roadmap.
FY2025-26 exports reached a record 4.47 lakh units, significantly higher than the previous financial year.
Maruti has increasingly used India as a global production base for Suzuki, and the e VITARA represents a particularly important example of this strategy.
Higher export volumes could help Maruti better utilise additional manufacturing capacity while reducing its dependence on fluctuations in the Indian domestic market.
What Could the 7-SUV Strategy Mean for Buyers?
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Maruti's announcement is not simply the number seven.
It is where those seven products could be positioned.
India's SUV market now stretches across numerous sub-segments, ranging from affordable micro-SUVs and sub-4-metre SUVs to midsize, premium and three-row vehicles.
Maruti already competes strongly in several of these categories, but some gaps remain.
A broader SUV portfolio could therefore allow Maruti Suzuki to compete with products ranging from the Tata Punch and Hyundai Exter at the entry end to larger SUVs higher up the market.
Electrification could create another layer of expansion, particularly as Maruti builds on the e VITARA platform.
The final composition of the seven-SUV programme will only become clear as Maruti officially announces individual models.
Auto Punditz Take
Maruti Suzuki's announcement of seven SUVs in five years is significant, but the bigger story is the scale of the strategy surrounding them.
The company appears to be assembling several growth engines simultaneously — SUVs, affordable small cars, exports, additional production capacity and multiple alternative-powertrain technologies.
This is important because Maruti's challenge over the next five years isn't simply selling more cars.
It needs to defend its traditional dominance in affordable vehicles while becoming substantially stronger in SUVs and adapting to the transition towards electrification.
The company's FY2025-26 volume of 24.22 lakh vehicles means reaching the next million milestone would require roughly another six lakh annual sales.
That is ambitious, but the combination of additional manufacturing capacity, seven SUVs, improving small-car demand and rapidly expanding exports makes the pathway increasingly visible.
The most interesting question now is the identity of those seven SUVs.
If Maruti can successfully attack the entry-level SUV segment while simultaneously expanding its hybrid and electric SUV offerings, India's largest carmaker could emerge with one of the broadest SUV portfolios in the country by the end of the decade.
For competitors, Maruti Suzuki's message is clear: its SUV expansion has only just begun.
