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The SUV segment is the fastest-growing car segment in India. The segment has overtaken the Sedans and is fast approaching the hatchback segment in terms of market contribution. All OEMs have placed their bets on this segment. More than 70% of the product launches in the recent past have had a share in this segment. But this segment was not the same 10 years ago.
Back in 2011, this segment did not have many OEMs. Even the market Leader, Maruti did not have a high volume car in this segment. It was only the turf of Mahindra, who took pride in being a UV manufacturer and Tata Motors had its set of UVs in this segment. Apart from this, we had the regular Toyota offerings in this segment.
In the year 2011, the top 10 UVs of India, contributed to a volume of about 1,94,540 units. This was almost 600% smaller than what the top 10 SUVs contributed in 2020. Mahindra had 4 out of the top 10 SUVs in India. Bolero which ruled the urban and rural markets ranked 1 for a very long term. This was the golden period of Bolero.
The golden Run of Bolero continued in 2012, where its market share even though reduced, but it held onto a market share of 40.53% of the top 10 selling SUV in India. This was the time when XUV500 had caught up with the race and was selling like a hot cake for Mahindra.
The year 2013, saw the rise of Renault Duster, even though Bolero held onto a share of 33.28%, Bolero rose to rank2 and took the market share of 15.49%. do note, by market share we are referring to the market share of the top 10 SUVof the respective years.
Coming to 2014, The volume of the top 10 SUV, had risen to 33,9014 units. Here we continue to see the market dominance of Bolero, but the dominance was diminishing by the year. The compact SUV from Ford had been launched and it took the market by storm, with Duster being the alternative in the market, ford ecosport found a lot of acceptance amongst the Indian car buyers. Nissan Terrano and duster did see their volumes being shared.
The year 2015, was the last year of Mahindra Bolero in the top 1 position, Mahindra would have seen it coming, with a drop in the top 10 market share of below 30% for the first time. Ecosport continued to feature in the top 3 list. This is also the year when the Hyundai Creta was introduced, it was a run-away hit and hit 40,952 units in its first year of debut.
2016 saw the fight for top rank SUV in India amongst the top two OEMs, Maruti and Hyundai, for now, Creta took the lead, but Brezza gave a very close fight for this year. but the next 3 years continuously Brezza from Maruti was the countries Number 1 selling SUV. 2016 also saw the top 10 SUV selling about 4,52,591 units. This was when the SUV segment was exploding with growth volumes.
The next 3 years from 2017 saw the dominance of Maruti Brezza. For the first time, the SUV segment also crossed the 5LAKHS volume mark here. Creta maintained rank2 here on for the next 3 years, until 2020 when it fought back and got its rank 1.
2018, saw the introduction of Tata Nexon, which straight away jumped into the top10 SUV rankings at rank 4. Brezza continued to dominate the SUV with rank 1 here. the SUV Industry touched the 6lakh volume for the first time here.
2019 and 2020, the Industry of SUVs in India maintained the 6lakhs+ unit's volume in both years. We did see in 2020, that Creta took over the Rank1 position from Vitara Brezza. What also was witnessed was the launch of Kia as a brand in India, the Kia Seltos was another runaway hit, it took the rank 2 positions and further displaced Brezza down to rank 3. Bolero moved down further to rank 6.
The current year 2021, has witnessed a volume of 3,65,514 units already and continues to grow even faster than ever before. As of now Creta and Venue hold positions 1 and 2. Brezza has pushed Seltos below it and has taken the third spot. While we have discussed the cars that have made it to the top 10, the last 10 years have also seen some cars not only slipping down from the top 10 positions but also discontinuing, the cars are namely Yeti, Sante Fe, Pajero, Quanto, BR-V, TUV300, etc. We hope to see many more OEMs launch SUVs in India with greater value offerings and hopefully, we will see many more cars making it to the top 10 SUV of India list.