 It has been 40 years since Suzuki Motor Corporation Japan entered the Indian car market as a joint venture partner of Maruti. The dream back then was to fulfill the aspirations of millions of Indians by providing them with an affordable and a reliable car. And truly, like the auto tagline goes, Maruti Suzuki became India's Paheli Savari. And we have with us Mr. Shivastava, who spent 30 years in the organization. That's a lifespan, light years in the corporate world. Mr. Shivastava tell us, how have you seen India change in these many years? And today, would you say we have moved from aspiration buying to utility-led buying as far as car ownership is concerned? Yeah, surely I think Indian car consumer has changed. Actually, India itself has changed dramatically. I remember when I joined Maruti Suzuki 30 years back plus. The Indian car penetration per thousand population was about 2. Now it's about 30. But they're still very far behind some of the richer nations where it's upward of 650, even in fact US is 750 or so. Japan is 700 plus. So we have still a lot of room to grow. But certainly the entire wave at which personal mobility, which used to be 30 years back, has changed dramatically. So one is the volume itself. Volume, I remember when Maruti Suzuki entered the market, India used to have about 50,000 vehicles sale every year. 25,000 used to be the sale of Premier Padmini and 25,000 approximately of Ambassador. Today, in fact, this year, 22, 23, the Indian, in the Indian industry, 39 lakh vehicles were sold in passenger vehicles. So from 50,000, the journey has become 39,000, 39 lakhs. And in fact, India is now, by the way, the third largest PV market in the world. It used to be some 45th when Maruti came in. So I think from being that 45th to third now in the world, it's quite a change. Secondly, actually the consumer buying itself has changed. One, the process itself. So today people are more into the digitalization. You know, people use internet to find out about the cars. Earlier it used to be largely word of mouth and whether it's the choice of medium of consumers, it's like completely changed there also. Fourthly, in terms of the buying pattern, earlier about 80% of the people or 85% of the people were first time buyers. Compare with the US or Japan where the first time buyers only 5%. Now, of course, it's about 45, 47%. But first time buyers from 85% have now come to about 45%. Replacement buying and additional car buying. That is, you have a car and you buy another car in the family. That has increased. So also has increased that you sell your old car and buy a new car. So that is the other big thing. And when you said that the reason for buying has changed. So earlier it used to be entirely about functionality, but now it is more about aspiration. That's because the social milieu has changed in India and people are now buying more for aspiration rather than just utility. Another thing is in April 22, you launched the Excel 6 of 14.55 lakh. Then there was a Grand Vitara that came in for a price tag of 22.5 lakh. And now you're all set to launch your most expensive vehicle yet. Tell me, in the past many years, has a car maker's agenda changed from providing the most affordable car for India to a more premium based model has a positioning overall changed for Maruti Suzuki? Yeah, I think we are just following the market. So the per capita income 30 years back used to be 700 rupees, 650 rupees GDP per capita for India. Today it is like upwards of 3000. And if you take PPP terms, the purchase parity terms, it's even higher. So obviously the choice of cars is now slightly more premium. The reason for buying, as I said, from pure functionality or fuel efficiency, it is changing towards more aspiration about design, about performance and so on. So obviously we follow that market. And one major thing in that respect is that while Maruti Suzuki, as you said, we have changed, our market share in the 10 lakh and below cars, which is currently our market share is 60% in that category. And earlier we never were present in the 10 to 15 lakh bracket. But with this advent of these cars you just mentioned, in the 10 to 15 lakh category also Maruti Suzuki has become the market leader. Although there our market share is not 60%, it's slightly less than 30%, but still the market leader. And that's quite surprising for many of the analysts, many of the industry pundits. They say Maruti Suzuki could not have ever been in the market leaders in the higher price category, which we have become. In fact, our premium channel Nexa was launched, essentially keeping in mind that we had to get away from that brand image of being only a reliable value for money sort of car. Now, let me tell you that part is also very important. Today, as they say, Bharat still has those values. They want fuel efficient cars, they want reliability, peace of mind that we have for that we have that original brand of ours. And then there is this other India, different from Bharat in a little way of more aspirational, and we knew that this trend is going to become big as our economy grew. And that is why we became a slightly more, we launched a premium channel, which was Nexa. It's not premium, it is what is called mass premium. So it's not luxury, it is mass luxury. And there we are happy that we could be successful. And of course you just, I think the news is only at two days old that Maruti Suzuki will be launching a vehicle which is a high end MPV. Like we are taking it from Toyota, and we will be launching in a high price category, probably around that 30 lakh sort of bracket. And we hope and we are working towards creating that sort of premiumness in our Nexa channel for us to be able to sell this vehicle and we hope will become market leaders there as well. And next is luxury cars then? Difficult question because you know, we'll see how the, at the moment luxury cars, by the way in India for audience here, it's just less than 1% of the market. It's about 0.9%. Last year about 37,000 luxury cars were sold. It's a really small market out of those 39 lakh passenger vehicles, about 37,000 were luxury cars. So it's still a very small and I think we do not have at the moment those type of engines and the volume certainly don't justify our moving into that type of segment. Moving to your digital journey. You know Maruti Suzuki has launched not one, but two Metaverse platforms. One is Nexaverse and Arenaverse. How has that helped in furthering sales and reaching out to this digital savvy consumer? I think it's a great question because you know, India by the way has a very big geography. We have car penetration now going into smaller areas as well. People also want to, even if they are in larger city, want to look at cars in their own free time and they want to do it in a immersive experience manner. And that's what the Metaverse provides. We have the Nexaverse, we have the Arenaverse now. And it also helps in expanding our footprint across the country where we cannot have physical showrooms. So there are many places where you just have that Oculus and you can actually, you can be transformed into a, you can be transported into a new showroom and where you can see all the cars you want in a 3D immersive way. And that's proved great. So it's not just a statement of technology, but it's also very customer friendly. In fact, the engagement there is much higher, about 9% higher than the physical showroom visits. So in that sense, it's very good. The reach is very good. And by the way, there's an interesting experiment which we are all, which we, Maruti Suzuki is doing, which is that we have realized that while India has 650,000 villages, 6.5 lakh villages, there are only 410,000 villages which have at least one Maruti. So there are about 2,40,000 villages which don't have a Maruti. People say 4,10,000 is great, but we believe what is past is past. We have to look at the balanced 240,000 where we may not have a physical infrastructure, but we can always have this metaverse through metaverse, that great experience and we are going and penetrating into those markets. Now, in fact, last year, we added about 20,000, 3,000 villages to that tally of 410 where we could penetrate thanks to this new technology. But there was a time when we thought, you know, digital car purchases are, you know, it's a touch and feel category. You have to go to the showroom. Pandemic kind of turned that theory on its head. But today, would you say, I mean, can you actually describe a percentage to how many sales have happened purely by the digital? We keep monitoring it very closely. In fact, 27% of our sales purely from the digital way. Car journey, by the way, from the time when you think of buying a car to when you actually buy a car, any of people here, you will go through 26 touch points. That's the research findings. So from the time you look at the internet to see about the car, then you go and see, download the brochure, you look at the company profile and so on, there are 26 touch points. And we have digitalized 24 of them. The two points which have not been digitalized are test drive and actual delivery. Of course, that's difficult. We have an option where you can do a test drive virtually. It is not the same thing. So yes, you are right in a car world. People would like to smell the leather as they say or kick the tires. So they want to physically visit the showroom. And in fact, 93% of the buyers do that. 93%. But some people go through this entirely digitally and after they were for taking the delivery, obviously they go to the showroom. And it's also a long-term purchase in the sense that you will keep visiting for after sales, surveys and so on and so forth, taking insurance again or fitting some accessories. So yes, it's still a lot of importance is attached to physical. That's why we don't say it's digital. We say it is digital. And that's something which is very, very, especially applicable to automobiles. There's something I've always noticed whenever we talk about brands that have existed for many, many decades, the traditional or the legacy brands as we may call it, whenever they do something, there's a technological advance that they've pioneered. There's always an element of surprise. It's a digital, a traditional brand which has gone into this digital sphere. Would you want to argue that? Would you say that as a traditional brand, you are, I think you have the foundation and you have the ability to take that risk and do something which is out of the box as opposed to the digital first brands? Absolutely. I think there is great advantage in having a legacy, but there's also a disadvantage in terms of, in times of disruptions. And in fact, there is a very famous book mid-90s about disruption. It is about traditional brands with large market shares, how they are averse to disruption. And the reason why they are averse to disruption is because they don't want it to happen. And why they don't want it to happen is because they are market leaders and they are good at what has already happened. That's why they are market leaders. So they are good at the current. They may or may not be good for the future. And therefore it is very, it's a matter of research and it's a conclusion drawn after many decades of research that in times of disruptions, the traditional brands find it very difficult. It is true. And those brands which do not change according to those disruptions will be wiped out because disruptions will happen irrespective of whether you want it or not. So while you are good at your market leaders, because you are good at doing things currently, the most efficient way, therefore it is in your interest that disruptions don't happen. But remember, disruptions will happen irrespective of whether you want it or not. And Maruti Suzuki, we realize that. And therefore we have a program in our organization called Mail Program. It's about Innovation Labs. It's Maruti Suzuki Automobile Innovation Labs called Mail Program. Where our employees also can, you know, have, if they have an innovative idea, they can actually go out of their normal working day and they can actually work on their other ideas. And that's something which has brought us very good results. In fact, many of the startups, this is also the program where we encourage startups. And therefore we realize disruptions will happen. We realize that big companies don't want it. Therefore, we are very mindful of that. And therefore we want to change very quickly. And that is why you see Maruti Suzuki, even after so many years, we have still been the market leaders by far. We've kept up. We had a CTV conference and you give a fantastic presentation there. Maruti Suzuki has been this giant advertiser on TV for decades. Now with ACR data available, you know, where you can do customized advertising on TV, considering the behaviors, the patterns and the data available on TV. Is it going to be a game changer for Maruti? Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, yes, we are advertising budgets are like 1200, 1400 crores, which is pretty large. We used to spend most of our advertising budgets on television. Today the breakup is about 34, 35% is television. About 30% is digital. And around 25 or so is is print and the balance is on OH and radio and so on. So, yes, we have to change and I believe while television is still very important. Now, I think Dr. Bhatrain is opening remark said personalized messaging. And we have at Maruti Suzuki build what is called a single view of customer. We have sold in the last 40 years of our existence, two and a half crore vehicles. And we have data about these two and a half crore consumers. Earlier it used to be data only on our DMS, which is a transactional data. So in cars, as you know, people will come and do insurance. They will do financing. So we know all that because that's transaction. Then they come for surveys, etc. But now we have international data as well. So if a consumer walks into the showroom, we will keep his data. He may or may not buy a vehicle from us, but we will keep that data in our database. So we have now stitched together transactional data with interactional data and on a single view. And there are, as you just mentioned, it can be very, very different. The scenario can be very different. In fact, I'll give you an example. There was one consumer who bought a WagonR in 2005. And we had in our database and our database to let because we run analytics on this database. And now we have, of course, ML, AI and so on and so forth. So this data threw up a very interesting thing that the daughter of this guy would be passing out from college. She was in Gargi college in Delhi and that she might be buying a car. So sure enough, our people approached her and she said, no, no, my dad bought the WagonR. I'm not going to buy another WagonR. He said, no, the WagonR has changed. It's the third generation now. And she was buying another car from one of our competitors. I wouldn't name. But when we approached her, she said, I'm not going to buy a WagonR. When we showed the WagonR, she took a test drive. She bought the WagonR. That wouldn't have been possible. Yeah. And we have a connected, we are talking of connected TVs. We have connected cars now. So we have now the, we can know how many times a consumer is putting the brakes on, how many times he's over speeding or even where he or she's going. But don't be afraid because we are governed by data privacy and we can't really. But you know, sometimes we approach the customers and say, you must change your brakes now. So he says, I have done only 10,000 kilometers. Your manual says it has to be changed in 20,000 kilometers. So we say that's if you are applying brakes during a day, five times. But we find that you are applying 31.2 times on an average. And therefore your brakes are likely to, you know, become bad earlier. And sure enough, then when they check, you will find that. It's all through this connected desert. So you can have absolutely different scenario. And you could even tell fuel, for example, if your fuel is down, you are happily driving. You can get an online message saying that your fuel is short. And there is no station if you are driving somewhere in the mountains, for example. There's no fuel station for the next 30 kilometers. You will have a fuel station in another, let's say 100 meters, better do it now. And not only, I mean, there is no end to it. I can give you some really, not horrible, but really great examples. For example, we are doing a testing of Ratina movement. So if you are driving and you are like a little drowsy, or if you are looking around, I mean, your attention is less, then we can tell that please be careful. Your attention has to be. So there are so many things which we can, you know. My daughter, when she takes the car, my car, so she will say, generally, I'm going to a new place to meet a friend. Then I find that she is going to Gurgaon. So I tell her, where are you going? So she says, Dad, I will take care of your data privacy. So I say, that's fine, my car is mine. I will take care of the theft on you. But you know, jokes apart, it is something which you can put to great use. And I think that we are taking those actions and going forward, it will be really, really different. But to what extent, how much would you be dedicating to CTV advertising now at this point? Is there a number you've decided? No, we haven't decided to a number, but CTV advertising, as we said. Currently, we are just looking for a uplift in our overall reach, 2% to 3% or so. But it's getting very big. And I have a feeling that going forward, it will become mainstream. And people will say, you know, because CTV has great advantage, both of linear, combined with linear, it has got greater. Especially for auto brands, where we have imagery and stickiness of image, very important. Moving on to something very important for you, I think at this point. You know, you've recently lost market share in the car market, you know, where SUVs have become very, very important. I think nearly half of all car sales today, roughly. Yeah, about 43%. So what is the strategy to boost sales in that particular department? Does Bresa, Gran Vitara become more important for you as a brand? Yeah, surely. I think everybody here realizes that the SUV market has become much larger than anticipated. It's now 43% of the market, combined with MPVs, which is about 8%, 9%. So half the market is what is known as MUV market, SUV plus MPVs. Small cars have come down to about 35%. Still very large, 1.3 million last year, but less than the SUVs. And you know, Maruti Suzuki market share. And I would like to, you know, dispel some, you know, wrong notion. People believe that Maruti Suzuki lost market share last 20 years. It's not. So if you look at data for the last 23 years, Maruti Suzuki's market share has always fluctuated between 43% to 51%. We have market share above 50% in four years, in the last 23 years. And those four years have been 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. So 50% plus market share has happened recently. And therefore, despite the fact that so many competitors have come in, you are referring to market share loss of last two years. And last two years, what has happened is while our market share in non-SUVs has gone up, now to 65%, from 58% to 65%, but our SUV market share has been low. And the reason has been that while this market has about 46 brands, Maruti Suzuki has only one brand, which is the Brezza. We introduced the Vitara last year, September. Now we have introduced two more models, France and the Jimny, and we hope that we'll reach about 25% share this year in the SUV, combined with a 65% market share in a non-SUV. I think we should look at market share above 45%. And our long-term target is 50% market share again. For that, we need to reach 33% market share in SUVs. That's going to take some time, but we are working towards that. Fantastic. I think this has been a great year for you. Even otherwise, you've reported a rebound in your net profit of F5 2023 after consecutive years of decline. Another thing was, I think you've entered the global 30-car maker Lispire revenue. Yes, you're right. Actually, this is the first time any car manufacturer in India, in fact, any engineering manufacturing company in India to cross one lakh crore turnover. That's happened for Maruti Suzuki this year. And that, I think, as now, that is the reason why it is propelled in the top 20, 30 companies in the world, as you just mentioned. Profits have been good, but I believe profits are a function in Maruti Suzuki and for other auto EMs, mainly a function of material cost. And material cost means commodity prices more or less. So that fluctuation is what led to the lower profits in the two, three years earlier. But now it is, again, back on the scene. So we made about profit before tax of almost like 10, 11,000 crores. So hopefully it should get better from here, especially if the commodity prices come down. And this is just my very last question related to this, because you mentioned you're obviously going to increase that market share. How soon are we going to see that 50% and above? What is your target? You said, are there a couple of months, years? No, it is going to be medium term. Can't be next year. As I said, next year most likely, if everything works well, supplies are okay, around 45, 46%. That's what I expect. Going forward, of course. So the future will not be near. The market share will be 50% in the future. The future will not be near. InshaAllah. Thank you so much. It was absolute delight talking to you. Thank you for that insight. Thank you very much. Thank you.