Maruti will soon join the Rs 20-lakh-plus club with the launch of its premium SUV Invicto on July 5. Bookings for the sports utility vehicle (SUV) will start on June 19.

The mass market player is slowly augmenting its premium cars portfolio with 10 models in its Arena sales channel and eight in its Nexa channel, which caters to premium customers.

Maruti’s previous foray into the premium segment was not successful with the flop of its Suzuki sedan Kizashi. However, the mass market player has now prepared itself with a global alliance with Toyota.

Maruti will source premium vehicles from Toyota while sharing its mass-market models and knowhow with them.

The Invicto is based on Toyota’s Innova Hycross and is being made at Toyota’s Bidadi factory.

The Innova Hycross is based on the TNGA-C platform and uses a two-litre strong hybrid engine.

Speaking to the media about the impending launch, Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer, MSIL, said: “There has been an emergence of a third-row premium vehicle category in the last few years. In FY22, this category saw a sale of 2,58,000 vehicles. In FY23, it is projected to grow to 300,000 vehicles.”

Srivastava said, “We found that customers are looking for comfort, space, and good performance.”

This segment of vehicles priced at Rs 20 lakh and above has also grown, contributing 5.5 per cent of the industry sales from 1 per cent a few years ago.

Maruti Suzuki, said Srivastava, was the market leaderin the Rs 10-15 lakh segment with a market share of 30 per cent.

While the company does not expect volumes to come from the premium Rs 20 lakh plus segment, a presence in that segment will boost its SUV market share.

In the MPV segment where Invicto will play, Maruti already sells models like the Ertiga and XL6.

“MPV sales have also grown from 162,000 units with a 6 per cent share in the industry to 330,000 units in 2022 with a 9 per cent share.

In FY23, MPVs are projected to sell 410,000 units, contributing 10 per cent of passenger vehicle sales,” said Srivastava.

Talking about the company’s offerings at higher price points, the officer said: “Price points have moved up because of regulatory stringency, spiralling material costs, increase in road taxes, customers wanting expensive features like sunroof, 360-degree camera and so on.

“There has been a shift in the segment with hatches contributing 34 per cent of sales and SUVs 45 per cent. We follow the market and what consumers want.”