Hungary’s favorite – Suzuki in its old glory!

Suzuki is triumphantly marching towards the top of the Hungarian car market. It seems that it may regain its pre-crisis position soon. However, loans are about to be replaced with some aid from the government, writes Napi.hu.

In the first quarter of 2018, Suzuki – which also has a production unit in Hungary – produced 71.8 percent of growth in sales. It is more than the double of the whole market’s increase of 30 percent. Suzuki’s market shares also increased by an outstanding 3.8 percent. Here is an overview of the Japanese car brand’s past 17 years of success, concluded by Napi.hu.

Suzuki was considered a miracle in the 1990s, as it was able to break the Eastern cars’ decades long monopoly on the highways of Hungary.

The production of the Swift model began in 1992. The most fabulous trick of this type was its simplistic design compared to the other giants of the vehicle industry. Thus it could remain affordable for Hungarian customers. This price, of course, came with quite hazardous financial constructions.

The most decisive offer was the 0 percent initial price with a 10 years run-time, encouraging a bulk of customers to purchase Suzuki. The triumph of the car brand is clearly seen from the market shares: it was 18.6 percent in 2007, 16.2 in 2008 and 13.4 in 2009.  The shares fell victim to the economic crisis in 2010.

Suzuki was forced to the margin when the entire market decreased to a quarter of its former traffic. However, this status did not last for long. The real return of Suzuki was the introduction of a new model, Vitara in 2015. There was no stopping after that: it exceeded Opel, Ford and Skoda in the market in about a year.

Vitara was proven to be a gold goose for Suzuki, as 10 percent of the total car sales are related to Vitara in 2018.

This model is accounted for 60 percent of the overall sales of Suzuki. Vitara is not only sold for personal purposes, but the army, the police and the hunters’ association also purchased a reasonable number of these cars.

The best year of Suzuki was arguably 2002 when it dominated 21 percent of the entire new car market. Its success is still unchallenged as more than 116,000 cars were sold by the Japanese brand last year.

The same probably will happen among the new, more strict financial conditions. It may also greatly influence Suzuki’s sales that the import of used cars is way more significant than before the crisis.

Photo: Suzuki.hu

Source: Napi.hu