Suzuki has been facing trouble with Kizashi’s sales figures since long time and now the company seems highly doubtful if there’s a future left to this mid-size sedan. Suzuki had high hopes with the Kizashi when it was unveiled back in 2009, especially from the US and Canada markets where a car-maker has got to offer pick-up trucks and mid-size sedans in order to record good sales figure. Well, be it the unfortunate time at which it was introduced (economic crisis back in ’09) or that the sedan isn’t just as good enough as the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord & other global mid-size sedan segment leaders, some-how Suzuki couldn’t manage to penetrate the segment well with the Kizashi. Suzuki feels that the Kizashi faced so much of trouble due to the unfavourable economic situations at the time of it’s launch back in ’09. “That’s my headache,” Kato says, “Kizashi was a very unlucky car. We had so many arguments about the question, ‘how to handle Kizashi’. At that time, frankly speaking, we should not have introduced the car into the market in 2009″, said Masaaki Kato, Suzuki’s managing director in a recent interview with Australia’s Drive.com.Au . Suzuki had started working on a turbocharged performance Kizashi and also planned a V6-powered and wagon versions of the car but had to drop the plans later on due to doubtful returns from the same. Suzuki already pulled out of the US market back in 2011 when it filed for bankruptcy and is also going to pull out of Canada after 2014 model year. So basically, when a car-maker quits the North American market, obviously the hopes of selling a mid-size sedan globally in big volumes, are half gone. And about Australia, the Suzuki Kizashi has done less than 5000 numbers in Australia since it’s launch back in 2010. Coming to our own country, the Maruti Suzuki Kizashi, imported in India as a CBU, was launched back in February ’11 with the price starting at INR 16.4 lakh. Even though Maruti Suzuki is considered as a very reliable brand in India, it isn’t well-known for the premium segment (consider the Grand Vitara if you doubt this). The Suzuki Kizashi didn’t do well in India either unfortunately. Back in September ’11 Maruti Suzuki tried offering INR 3 lakh discount on the Kizashi, but no, didn’t work. Just two months later, in November ’11, Maruti Suzuki stopped importing Kizashi and slashed the starting price to 11.5 lakhs to clear the remaining stocks. But no, even INR 5 lakh discount wasn’t fortunate enough to heat-up the sales, no matter the big discount or the festive season either. Since then the Kizashi has been available only on order basis. Maruti Suzuki had planned importing the Kizashi as CKDs and assembling in India if the sales were promising, to get the price to an attractive figure, but the poor sales figure never gave the chance to do so. Suzuki’s upcoming 2014 SX4 sedan is expected to be very promising though, ’cause that one wouldn’t disappoint one on the price, design, features or anything, and on the plus side, you’d get a pocket-saving, economic diesel motor on option too. Concluding about the Kizashi, unlike how Suzuki’s Global Website proudly states the meaning of the name “Kizashi” to be “a sign of great things to come”, we reckon the name didn’t work well with Suzuki’s fate with the Kizashi. But let’s not lose our hopes, we still find the Kizashi, to be deserving an honourable place in it’s segment if priced and marketed well, and hopefully Suzuki might think again on the next-generation Kizashi if the next-generation SX4 (codename: YL1) goes a big success and it inspires Suzuki for the new Kizashi. Stay tuned to Wheelosphere for more exclusive updates. The post Suzuki doubtful with Kizashi’s future, says next-generation improbable appeared first on Wheelosphere .
[via Wheelosphere]
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