Renault Kwid challenges segment leader Maruti Alto

The Renault Kwid has recently been launched, to take on the Maruti Alto and Hyundai Eon at an aggressive price of INR 2.

85 lakhs (on-road, Delhi). The Maruti Alto also starts at a similar price.

The Kwid is priced attractively to take on the Alto 800, which rules the small car segment, currently and is the company’s first hatchback for the Indian car market under INR 4 lakhs. “Kwid is an attractive, innovative and affordable car, built in India with a localisation of 98 per cent. We wanted to be aggressive in pricing the car to give value to customers. This is India’s most fuel-efficient petrol car with mileage of 25.17 km a litre. The cost of maintenance will be 19 per cent lower than the market leader,” said Sumit Sawhney, country chief executive and managing director at Renault India.

Renault’s current market share is less than two per cent and it aims to grow it to five per cent.“We were not benchmarking this car against any other vehicle. We wanted to create a new benchmark. Kwid will be a big contributor in helping us reach a market share of five per cent by 2017,” Sawhney said. The Kwid has one of the most-powerful engines and bigger in size that the Alto, Eon and even the Tata Nano. It offers a class leading boot space of 300 litres which is nearly double as compared to the Alto. Around 175 Renault dealers across the country had started accepting bookings prior to the lauch and customers could book the car for an assured delivery in the festive season.

The last entrant in this segment was the Hyundai Eon and since then there has been no new product in this space. Maruti Alto and Tata Nano though, have been getting periodic upgrades.

 Renault will also launch a virtual showroom for Kwid to address customers who cannot visit the showroom. The Kwid can also be booked through a mobile app, launched by the company.

It will be interesting to see how this rejuvenated segment performs, now with the launch of Kwid, and how Maruti, Hyundai and Tata respond to this new benchmark.