Suzuki thinks big by staying small

Suzuki is chasing a bigger slice of New Zealand's small car market. Photo / Supplied

Increasingly efficient models will underpin Suzuki ambitions to take an even bigger share of the small-car market in New Zealand.

The brand is targeting 30 per cent of the supermini segment in 2012, helped by the introduction of more fuel-thrifty, low-emission cars.

Not only is there an impending arrival of an updated, more economical version of Suzuki's smallest model, the Alto, but a diesel version of the Suzuki Swift, New Zealand's biggest-selling small car, will soon be available.

Suzuki expects to sell 5700 new cars in New Zealand this year, a 17.9 per cent increase on 2011, which was the marque's second-best result.

"Last year, the Swift captured 23.6 per cent of the light-car class while its nearest rival, the Toyota Yaris, took 15.6 per cent," said Tom Peck, general manager of marketing for Suzuki New Zealand, speaking at the launch of the Swift Sport in Wellington.

Total sales of light cars in New Zealand last year improved by 15.7 per cent - the highest increase of all categories of new cars.

"At the same time, the large-car class suffered the biggest drop in sales, an indication of the way in which the market is heading," said Peck. Large-car sales last year declined by 18.2 per cent.

Suzuki already had the lowest average CO2 emissions of the top 12 selling brands of motor vehicles, and was making further improvements.

Cars with automatic transmissions are usually less economical and produce more emissions than manual equivalents, but the new Swift Sport hatchback is a notable exception.

This flagship Swift uses 6.1 litres/100km of fuel in the combined cycle, compared with 6.5 litres/100km for the new Sport manual and 7.5 litres/100km for the outgoing Swift Sport manual.

"It is a win-win situation with the new Swift Sport not only being more refined, faster, safer and better equipped, but more economical and easier on the environment," said Peck. The improvements have come at a modest increase in price.

Suzuki predicts it will sell 500 of the high-performance Swift Sport this year, almost equalling the record of 506 for the previous version in 2007. Of the 14,000 new Swifts sold in New Zealand since 2005, 1600 have been Sport models.

Female buyers for the outgoing Sport comprised 59 per cent of total sales but with the arrival of an automatic variant the target base is widened. The old Swift Sport was only available in manual gearbox form.

Despite production and supply constraints resulting from the Japanese earthquake and Thailand floods, world production of Suzuki cars, at more than 2.7 million units in 2011, was down only slightly on the previous year.

Stocks of Suzuki Splash and Jimny models to New Zealand were affected, but production is now back to normal.