India’s car market is shifting gears. Where do small cars stand?
- Tarun Shukla
- ET PrimeUpdated: Apr 27, 2026, 14:47 IST IST
It was some nine years ago. Axwell, one of the world’s top DJs from Swedish House Mafia fame, landed in India to perform. Surprisingly, the venue wasn’t Goa’s open-air Sunburn Festival that features top international DJs. It was Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. And the occasion was not a music festival, but the launch of Maruti Suzuki’s near-entry level car Ignis, aimed at wooing first-time buyers and young millennials alike.
Launching Ignis was perhaps Maruti’s way of keeping up with the market trend. That fiscal year, 2017–18, marked a near-peak for broad-based auto demand. Automakers were confident a durable recovery was underway, with Maruti Suzuki CEO Kenichi Ayukawa pointing to “healthy growth in entry-level cars” as evidence of first-time buyers returning, while Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M) Pawan Goenka described the rural recovery as “real and sustainable.”
Launching Ignis was perhaps Maruti’s way of keeping up with the market trend. That fiscal year, 2017–18, marked a near-peak for broad-based auto demand. Automakers were confident a durable recovery was underway, with Maruti Suzuki CEO Kenichi Ayukawa pointing to “healthy growth in entry-level cars” as evidence of first-time buyers returning, while Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M) Pawan Goenka described the rural recovery as “real and sustainable.”
