Acknowledgements

We owe a great many thanks to a great many people who helped and supported us during the preparation of this term paper. Our deepest thanks to our Lecturer, Mr. Neeraj Kumar Sehrawat the Guide of the project for guiding and correcting various documents of ours with attention and care. He has taken pain to go through the project and make necessary correction as and when needed. We express our thanks to the Principal of Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, University of Delhi for extending her support. We would also thank our Institution and our faculty members without whom this project would have been a distant reality. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to our families and well wishers.

Abhishek Verma Amandeep Kaur Amneet Kaur Apoorv Sharma

50404 50414 50417 50424

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Index
Introduction Objective Research Methodology Methods of Analysis A quick glance into the Indian automobile Industry Key Variables Studied Profile of the sample survey Pointers for Maruti Suzuki Ltd. What it lacks Recommendations for Maruti Suzuki Other Observations References Annexure 4 5 6 7 8 12 13 16 19 21 22 24 25

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Introduction
The automotive industry in India is one of the largest in the world and one of the fastest growing globally. India's passenger car and commercial vehicle manufacturing industry is the sixth largest in the world, with an annual production of more than 3.9 million units in 2011. According to recent reports, India overtook Brazil and became the sixth largest passenger vehicle producer in the world (beating such old and new auto makers as Belgium, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Spain, France, Brazil), growing 16 to 18 per cent to sell around three million units in the course of 2011-12. In 2009, India emerged as Asia's fourth largest exporter of passenger cars, behind Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. In 2010, India beat Thailand to become Asia's third largest exporter of passenger cars. The first car ran on India's roads in 1897. Until the 1930s, cars were imported directly, but in very small numbers. Embryonic automotive industry emerged in India in the 1940s. Mahindra & Mahindra was established by two brothers as a trading company in 1945, and began assembly of Jeep CJ-3A utility vehicles under license from Willys. The company soon branched out into the manufacture of light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and agricultural tractors. Ever since then, the Indian automobile industry grew by leaps and bounds. The industry was Jeep CJ3A buoyed by the rising population as well the growing demand for private vehicles affected by factors like increased purchasing power and inadequate public transport system.

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Objective of the research

Ever since the pre-reforms period completely transformed the economic scenario of our country, its effects were seen and felt in the social landscape of the country as well. As disposable incomes rose, people felt an urge to look for products that would satisfy their wants , now that their needs had been fulfilled. One such commodity was private vehicles, for the need for locomotion was felt due to the expanding cities of modern India, coupled with the inadequate public transportation systems. In todays scenario a car has transformed from being a luxury to a basic necessity, hence there arises an opportunity to study what exactly a consumer looks for in his car, how he uses it and what all are the things he would not like to have in his car. This project reveals that what all factors persuade or play a major part in the decision of making a final purchase of car by the customer. By the end of the analysis, one could be able to draw out the factor that persuaded the customer to buy the car, the most popular car, the problem associated with the car etc.

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Research Methodology
The design of any research project requires considerable attention to the research methods and the proposed data analysis. Within this section, we have attempted to provide some information of how we got started with this project and how we proceeded with the filling of the questionnaires and at last how we made the analysis We began A considerable time was spent for preparing the questionnaires, the questionnaire were prepared in a manner that it is not objected by people who are filling it and in a manner to extract the requisite information in a discrete manner. Sample size . The questionnaires were filled by 56 people from different fields in a very non-discriminatory manner. It helped us to make correct assessment and analyze data. Such a sample ensured that we were able to draw out some facts and that were able to accomplish our objectives. Getting filled The feedback was of online nature whereby we used Google docs to create forms and consolidate all the results in a single file. The questionnaires were got filled keeping in mind that people from different fields have different expectations and aspirations from their jobs and organizations.

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Methods Of Analysis
After obtaining our raw data from our sources, we used computer software like Ms-Excel to process and organize the whole data. Later on other functions of the same software were used to generate charts and diagrams and all these were used to fillip the whole analysis part. These charts and diagrams enhance the presentation and help others to conclude the facts. These facts lately contributed towards analysis of the whole project that helps to actually measure the accomplishment of the objectives. Based on this analysis we were able to draw out the current scenario.

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A quick glance into the Indian Automobile industry

The automobile industry of India is one of the biggest in the world and one of the fastest growing globally. Since the Ist car that rolled out in the street of Mumbai in 1898 , the automobile industry of India has come a long way. According to the recent reports, India overtook Brazil and became the 6th largest passenger producer in the world beating automakers like Belgium, U.K. Italy, German, Canada, Mexico. In 2009 India has emerged as Asias 4th largest exporter of Passenger Car after Japan, South Korea and Thailand . Beginning from the era when there were only a few car varieties in Indian market, the automobile industry has come up a long way with a diverse array of cars nowadays. A number of companies are dominating the Indian automobile industry, but like in any other sector, the automobile sector also has got top 10 players. When talking about top automobile companies, one name that would come in most of our minds is Maruti Suzuki and this company has consistently been the leader in the automobile industry in India. There are also other top players and the list of top ten players in this industry is given below: Top ten automobile companies in India(2011): Maruti Suzuki India Limited Hyundai Motor India Limited Tata Motors Mahindra & Mahindra Limited Skoda Motors Limited Volkswagen Motors General Motors India Private Limited Honda Siel Cars India Limited
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 Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited Hindustan Motors

Some details regarding these companies can be obtained from the content given below: Maruti Suzuki India Limited: As mentioned earlier, Maruti Suzuki India Limited is leading the automobile industry in India for quite a longer number of years. The company began its journey in the year 1981 with its name as Maruti Udyog Limited, and the company began to attract the market when it introduced its popular fourwheeler model Maruti 800. It got its present name in the year 2007.

Hyundai Motor India Limited: This company was founded in the year 1998 and it is second largest car manufacturing company in India, which was established as a subsidiary of auto giant of Korea, Hyundai Motor Company. The company captured the hearts of Indian car lovers with the introduction of its Santro car model.

Tata Motors: Even though, Tata Motors holds the third position in the automobile industry, the company has occupied the first position in the commercial car manufacturing section. In the luxury car segment, the company has a market share of 6.4%, while in the case of multi-utility vehicles, its market share is 31.2%.

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Mahindra & Mahindra Limited: Mahindra & Mahindra ltd, which is a part of the Mahindra Group holds the pride of being the largest company in the segment of sport utility vehicle. During the year 2008, the company has sold 10,641 units of utility vehicles, which this number has raised to 15,296 vehicles in the year 2009.

General Motors India Private Limited: General Motors India Private Limited is a subsidiary of the giant in automobile industry known as giant General Motors. The company recorded a sales growth of 49% in the year 2009 as compared to the year 2008.

Honda Siel Cars India Limited: This company is joint venture between an Indian company called Siel limited and Japanese company Honda Motor Company ltd., which began its journey in the year 1995. The company showed a growth rate of 86.7% in the year 2009 when compared to its sales record in the year 2008.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited: Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited is a joint venture between Kirloskar Group and Toyota Motor Corporation belonging to Japan. The company has
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introduce some of the popular model cars like Camry, Fortuner, Corolla, Land Cruiser Prado and Innova. Hindustan Motors: Hindustan Motors are the manufacturers of the great car, which can still be found in Indian roads named as Ambassador. This model car is still being used as government limousine and as taxi cabs in some parts of India.

Skoda Auto Ltd. SKODA Auto India started its operations in India on November 16, 2001. They opened their manufacturing unit in Shendra, on the outskirts of Aurangabad. Thus setting their foot on the Indian soil. SKODA is based in the Czech Republic and was established in the year 1895. Skoda launched numerous cars like Fabia, Superb Octavia and most importantly Rapid which was specifically designed for India.

Volkswagen India Private Limited Volkswagen India Private Limited is a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group Sales India Private Limited that assembles, manufactures and distributes Volkswagen vehicles in India. It was established in 2007.In the year 2010, VIPL recorded sales of 32,627 vehicles against 3,039 vehicles sold during the year 2009 and registered a sales growth of over 1,000% Thus, automobile industry is India is always on peak with some of the top players, who are introducing different variety of vehicles every year to meet the needs of car and motorbike lovers.

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Key Variables Studied

Price: A customer will always choose a car whose price is affordable. A customer will always look for a car which has maximum features to experience but with minimum price. Income: Income of the customer plays a vital role in the decision making of the purchase of a car. A customer will plan a car which suits his budget. No one goes beyond what their income level supports. Mileage: Mileage can indicate how long an individual can expect a vehicle to run without any major problems. The more the mileage is, the more that car is preferable. Fuel: With rising petrol prices, people may prefer to go for cars whose engine supports diesel (CNG or LPG). Therefore it becomes important that car that wholly runs on petrol may be less preferred comparatively. New or used car: buying a new car has the advantage of the buyer being assured of a well running vehicle free of the wear and tear a used car typically has used cars on the other side have the advantage of lower prices and shorter financial period. Body style: It is important consideration and depends most upon ; individual performance and needs. Once body style is determined, modal can be researched and determined. Financing: Financing of the car plays an invertible role in the decision making. Reputation: The reputation of the company that is selling the car also play a role in the decision making. Reliability: A car which needs repair work every second month will not that much demand. Obviously the car should be reliable subjected to less repair work. Cost of parts: There are certain car even if it is sold for free, no one shouldnt bother considerably Because of their high cost of spare parts which is most of the time save not only scare and expensive.

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Profile of our Sample Survey

No. of Cars Owned by the Respondents

More than Two 4% Nil 5% Two 24%

One 67%

No.Of Cars Nil One Two More than Two

No.of Respondents 3 37 13 2

Percentage of total 5.45 67.27 23.64 3.64

The majority of our respondents were those who had only one car to them which was followed by the no. of people possessing two cars. Still 5 % of the sample did not own a car while 4 % owned more than two cars.

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Prices Of Cars Of the Respondents

Between 1 Lakh to 2 Lakh 6%

Between 6 Lakh to 10 Lakh 24%

Between 2 Lakh to 4 Lakh 31%

Between 4 Lakh to 6 Lakh 39%

Price Range of the Cars

Between 1 Lakh to 2 Lakh Between 2 Lakh to 4 Lakh Between 4 Lakh to 6 Lakh Between 6 Lakh to 10 Lakh Above 10 Lakh

No.of Responses 3 15 19 12 11

% of total 5 25
31.66667 20 18.33333

Bulk of all the respondents reported that they owned cars within the price range of 4 Lakhs-6 Lakhs with other top response being 2 Lakh 4 Lakh and 6 Lakh 10 Lakh. This is an indicator that it will be most profitable for companies to produce cars in this price range in India.

Body Type Preferences of the Respondents

Car type Hatchback Jeep MUV Sedan SUV

Respondents 27 2 9 21 28

Percentage of Total 31.03 2.30 10.34 24.14 32.18

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Car Types

SUV 32%

Hatchback 31%

Sedan 24%

Jeep 2% MUV 11%

An interesting trend that can be seen is that Most of the cars that are being purchased are either Hatchbacks or SUVs. This shows the polarity of preferences in our purchasing behaviours whereby the smallest and the biggest cars are being sold the most. This could also be attributed the fact that in India, there exists a very wide disparity in income levels of the people wherein the rich are very rich and poor very poor.

Preferences of Consumer on basis of brands

Honda 6% Toyota 7% Hyundai 16% Nissan 5% BMW 4% Skoda 4%

Tata 4%

Volkswagen 4% Audi 3% Chevrolet 3% Mahindra 3% Mercedez 1%

Other 14%

Maruti Suzuki 40%

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Maruti Suzuki Ltd.

Since Maruti Suzuki was the clear market leader in our survey, we decided to do a detailed analysis on Maruti Suzuki itself.

Some specific pointers : According to our data, the main market for Maruti Suzuki lies in income group of 2 Lakh-7 Lakh and expectedly its niche market remains the hatchback and small car market.

Maruti Suzuki consumers prefer Hatchbacks over other types

SUV 11% Sedan 22% MUV 11% Jeep 8% Hatchbacks 48%

Also, our data indicates that among all the cars surveyed about 75 % second-hand cars were of Maruti Suzuki which underlines the tendency of turning to Maruti when buying a second hand car .

Surprisingly, The most common color that was chosen by respondents who had a Maruti Suzuki was white and it outscored other colours by more than double the remaining responses.

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Top Factors affecting choice of buying a Maruti Suzuki

space 8% features 30%

after purchase services 10%

mileage 25%

price 27%

Most of the people surveyed reported that their top preferences for buying a Maruti Suzuki were its add-on features(30%), pricing with relation to competitors(27%) and mileage(25 %).

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The Marketing Effectiveness Of Maruti Suzuki's different media.

Car dealer 12% Friends & Family 29%

TV 27%

Newspaper 18%

Magazine 14%

Our survey showed that the respondents got to know about their car primarily through their Friends and Family members(29%) and through Television advertisement and programmes (27%). This just reiterates the common belief and an accepted fact that word-of-mouth plays an extremely important medium of marketing whenever it comes to high involvement products such as Cars. Moreover, the huge investments made to advertise on Television seem to be paying off as a large proportion of respondents agreed to the fact that they got to know about their cars through the medium of television.

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What a Maruti Suzuki Car lacks according to its customers.

Obviously a person would go in for modifications only when he/she is convinced that the certain change would improve his/her driving experience and he would have loved to see that particular accessory or specification already imbibed in his car. There are numerous aspects which the consumers feel, had been incorporated, would have led to an increase in their satisfaction levels.

Major modifications done on Maruti Suzuki Cars

Reverse Parking Theft Sensors Sensors 10% 8% Fog Lamps 10% Alloy Wheels 11% Spoilers 6% Stereo and other music components 34%

New Seat Covers 21%

As can be seen above, more than half of the respondents got changed their stereo and music systems as well as seat covers. This is a clear pointer that the quality or rather the expected quality in both these areas is not met satisfactorily by Maruti Suzuki cars

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 Maruti car owners reported that the major problems that they faced in their cars were as follows:

Major Problems Associated with Maruti Suzuki Cars

Mileage Trouble 21% Braking System 8% Clutter of squeaks and rattles 5%

Over heating of engine 37%

Ineffective A/c 29%

Primarily Maruti Suzuki Cars have been giving the consumers problem of overheating of the engine. This is a potentially dangerous problem given the fact that the incidences of cars catching fire nowadays hve been widespread and such an image of the cars could impact sales of Maruti Suzuki. Moreover, cars often break down due to the overheating of engines. The consumers also complain of the ineffectiveness of the A/c in their Maruti Suzuki cars. This is an aspect that Maruti would have to look into in order to protect its territory from its competitors. Mileage has been the bane of most cars particularly those which have been running around for some time. Apart from these clutters of squeaks and rattles and the braking system were the other major problems that irked Maruti Suzuki customers.

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Recommendation for Maruti Suzuki Ltd

Our survey showed that Maruti Suzuki is the clear market leader and needs to keep its leadership intact by satisfying existing customers more than others and also attracting newer customer bases. Maruti has a very strong hold on the hatchback market and remains the first choice for customers who are buying their first cars. Through its marketing campaign of kitna deti hai it has been able to create a positive predisposition in the mind of the consumer that it produces really fuel-efficient cars. This was substantiated in our survey as 25 % of all Maruti Suzuki owners identified mileage being the key determinant in their decision to buy the product. However, a very striking fact was presented in our survey that 21 % Maruti Suzuki owners admitted as to having problems with their mileages. Maruti needs to fix this up as soon as it can otherwise its so-far successful campaign would backfire, as it would not be fulfilling its commitment of supplying fuel-efficient cars. Maruti has always been a peoples car and in order to maintain its popularity among the Indian people, it surely needs to look into the grievances of its customers and remove them. Particularly because the responsibilities of a leader(read market leader) is much more than those of the followers.

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Relation between annual income and Purposes for which the car is used
Usage Pattern Difference according to Annual Income
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Below 2 Lakh 2 Lakh-5 Lakh 5 Lakh-10 Lakh 10 Lakh-15 Lakh Above 15 Lakh Leisure Shopping Commuting to workplace

A clear conclusion could be seen that as income levels rose, the dependency on cars for only commuting to the workplaces and back reduces. And expectedly, the use of private vehicles for leisure and shopping activities increased with an increase in the income levels of the respondents. A probable reason of this could be that with rise in disposable incomes there is a change in habits and behaviour patterns of individuals whereby they will tend to spend more money on satisfying their wants and probably the use of cars for every small and big activity would arise.

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Average Monthly Expenditure on Cars

Rs.15000Rs.30000 9%

Rs.7500-Rs.15000 19%

Below Rs 2500 45%

Between Rs. 25007500 27%

A majority of our respondents still dont prefer to spend more than Rs. 2500 a month on their cars. Seemingly possible they view their cars as more of a status symbol than a commodity to be utilised effectively.

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References
www.wikipedia.com www.google.com www.facebook.com/volkswagenindia www.carwale.com www.siliconindia.com www.scribd.com

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Annexure
We have attached a sample questionnaire that we used in the survey for reference.

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