Renault Kwid emerges threat to Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai

Maruti and rival Hyundai are facing fresh challenge in the small car segment with Renault's Kwid meeting with increased demand in the Indian market. The Kwid along with the Datsun redi-Go could heighten competition for both Maruti and Hyundai.

Reports said, the top two car makers are reviewing their small car portfolio in order to prevent their small car market share from being eroded.

The Renault Kwid bookings continue to pile up steadily, and has already started eating into Maruti's market share.

With the passenger cars priced below Rs4 lakh accounting for half of the Indian car market, this could be real concern for Maruti and Hyundai.

For market leader Maruti, the only challenge to its hold on the small car market so far has been Hyundai as no other manufacturer had managed to establish itself in that segment so far.

However, within the first six months its launch, the Kwid has managed to clock sales of 41,2014 units and the bookings have surpassed 1.25 lakh units. Renault has increased the production capacity of the Kwid at the end of March.

Besides, the recently unveiled Datsun redi-Go, the second product to be based on Renault-Nissan Alliance's CMF-A platform, could pose a fresh challenge to the car market leaders. Renauklt could also aggressively price the new models.

The current top selling small car models include Maruti's Alto twins and WagonR and Hyundai's Eon and i10.