It looks like car buyers in India do not want to compromise on comfort and safety even while buying small cars. While India is still a frugal country with a cap on high spending, car manufactures are seeing that top end variants are selling like hot cakes.

All car manufacturers including Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Honda Siel Cars and Toyota Motors are witnessing an unprecedented jump in sales of the top end variants of their products. In fact, the sales of top end variants have been so good that car manufacture are contemplating on phasing out base models altogether.

Take a look at the statistics, Maruti Suzuki SX4 top end variant ZXi constitutes over 70 percent of the sales of the model. The same has been witnessed in Swift Dzire sedan where ZXi and VXi variants outsell the base LXi. The small car Alto LXi variant forms nearly 60 percent of the sales of this model.

The same goes for Toyota which has many premium cars marketed in India. The top end variants of the expensive Corolla Altis and Innova are selling way beyond their initial expectation. The Innova VX was initially planned to be around 35 percent of the production of the car, but now constitutes for more than 50 percent of the sales. Much of the sales for the Corolla Altis come from the sale of its top end model 1.8 GL&V variant.

Car buyers in India are no more interested in bare bones vehicles as cars. They are demanding more luxury features like anti-lock brakes, airbags, automatic climate control, engine immobilizers, alloy wheel and even special colours.
This trend denotes that Indian market has grown up from its initial image and wants bigger and better cars. Bare bones cars are long sufficient to satisfy their need for a car.