After four long decades, there’s been a shakeup in India’s auto industry.
For the first time in forty years, Maruti Suzuki hasn’t made the best-selling car in India in a calendar year. The best-selling car in 2024 in India was the Tata Punch, which sold 2.02 lakh units. The best-selling car from the Maruti stable, the Maruti Wagon R, was pushed to second place with 1.9 lakh units sold.
In spite of losing the top spot, Maruti managed to occupy three of the top five spots in the best-selling cars of 2024. After Wagon R, the third best-selling car in India was the Maruti Ertiga with 1.9 lakh units sold, and the fourth best-selling car in the country was Maruti’s Brezza with 1.8 lakh units sold. Hyundai’s Creta rounded up the top five with 1.86 lakh units sold.
“We registered strong growth in our SUV portfolio with successful product introductions built on our proven multi-powertrain strategy. CNG volumes grew a substantial 77% with over 120,000 CNG vehicles sold in CY24,” said Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director, of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility. “SUV volumes grew a robust 19%, with Punch selling over 200,000 units to emerge as the highest selling car model in India in CY24,” he added.
Only a handful of cars have managed to earn the title of the best-selling car in India. From 1957 to 1984, the best-selling car in India was the Ambassador. After Maruti’s entry, the Maruti 800 was the best selling car of the next two decades, holding the top spot from 1985 to 2004. The Maruti Alto, which was meant to be a replacement of the Maruti 800, had the top spot from 2005 to 2017. Since then, different cars — all made by Maruti — have held the top spot, including the Maruti Dzire in 2018, the Alto in 2019, the Swift in 2020, the Wagon-R in 2021 and 2022, and the Swift again in 2023. In 2024 — the first time since 1984 — a non-Maruti car, the Tata Punch, has become the top-selling car in India.
Tata Punch’s move to the top spot will be a feather in Tata’s cap. The Punch had been launched as an affordable SUV, and was heavily promoted by Tata, including in several IPL seasons for which Tata was the chief sponsor. Simultaneously, the Tata Punch’s entry to the top spot also shows an increasing preference of customers towards SUVs, and the growing affluence in India — for years, the top–selling car in India was either the entry-level Maruti-800 or the Maruti Alto, but a move towards a more expensive SUV as India’s top car in some ways mirrors the growth of India’s middle class.