Economy
No change in Türkiye’s priorities despite global shock: Şimşek
The global shock due to the Middle East conflict will affect Türkiye’s economic program but will not cause any change in its priorities, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Thursday.
Şimşek acknowledged that the Iran war is likely to cause deviations in the inflation, growth and external balance targets this year due to higher energy prices.
The conflict, unleashed on Feb. 28 by Israel and the United States against Iran, provoked reprisals from Tehran across the region and a shipping blockade in Hormuz, a crucial global trade route, leading to a significant global surge in the price of hydrocarbons.
The fallout poses a challenge for import-heavy economies like Türkiye, where inflation rose to nearly 32.4% in April, the highest measure since October 2025.
Şimşek still signaled the government would maintain its disinflation and fiscal discipline agenda.
“We are facing a major global shock, but we have never envisaged any change in the program’s priorities,” he told a summit in Istanbul.
He was referring to the government’s medium-term road map that has been implemented since 2023 and has mainly centered around a tight monetary policy to curb inflation.
Şimşek acknowledged that inflation, current account deficit, budget deficit and growth outcomes were likely to diverge from official targets this year, largely due to the impact of the Iran war-linked rising energy prices.
“This is highly likely, but we are doing and will continue to do what is necessary to keep the program broadly on track,” he said.
Buffers
The shocks are significant but manageable, Şimşek said, arguing that Türkiye had built resilience through fiscal discipline and macroeconomic buffers.
He still said Türkiye could not remain insulated from global developments. “We do not live on another planet. We are part of the global economy,” he noted.
Şimşek added that Türkiye was not facing an energy supply shock thanks to its diversification of oil and natural gas suppliers and products, adding that the country was not dependent on the Strait of Hormuz.
“Our dependence on the Strait of Hormuz in energy is now almost non-existent,” he said.
He said the government had used fiscal space to cushion households and businesses from higher fuel prices.
Without intervention, gasoline prices would have risen from TL 59 ($1.30) to TL 79 per liter, he said, but were currently around TL 64-TL 65.
“Many countries saw fuel price increases of 20%-30%, and in some cases above 30%. Türkiye managed this period with an increase of around 11%,” he said.
Şimşek said Türkiye entered the current crisis with stronger macroeconomic balances, noting the current account deficit was below 2% of GDP before the shock, while foreign exchange reserves had risen from around $100 billion before the program to roughly $166 billion.
Türkiye’s long-term external debt-to-GDP ratio has also improved to around 33% from a historical average of 44%, he added.
Şimşek said the government aimed to turn the crisis into an opportunity, including efforts to position Türkiye as a global trade hub and attract multinational firms’ regional headquarters to the Istanbul Financial Center.
“We cannot waste this crisis; we will absolutely, without a doubt, turn it into an opportunity for our country.”
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announced Monday they would impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, further throttling a global energy market already greatly restricted by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
This is why it matters and what it means for the Iran war and the global energy crisis.
How big is risk to global energy markets?
It is not clear how the Houthis would carry out a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, its northern neighbor along the Red Sea coast, or whether it would include a return to attacks on shipping.
Yemen sits on the Bab el-Mandeb strait – the southern gateway to the Red Sea – and closing that would open up a new front in the energy crisis and Iran’s overarching conflict with the U.S.
With the Strait of Hormuz already disrupted, the Red Sea has become a critical alternative outlet for Gulf oil and other products. A serious disruption would mean both of the Middle East’s major oil export routes are shut simultaneously.
Iran’s partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after Israel and the U.S. attacked it on Feb. 28 disrupted most oil and other exports from the Gulf, raising prices and delivering a global energy shock.
Saudi Arabia responded by diverting more than 70% of its normal daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Ships from Yanbu bound for Europe go north through the Suez Canal. Those heading to Asia go south through Bab el-Mandeb.
Shipments from Yanbu averaged 4 million barrels per day in recent weeks according to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean, up from around 973,000 bpd a year earlier.
Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab el-Mandeb amounted to 7.4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global oil output, according to Kpler data, up from 4.2 million bpd last year.
That has provided a lifeline for the energy market, helping to keep down global oil prices. Saudi Arabia is considering an expansion of its crude oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast, Reuters reported last week.
When the Houthis launched attacks on Red Sea shipping in November 2023, Gulf oil exports were flowing freely.
Are Houthis closing Red Sea energy routes on behalf of Iran?
The Houthis have been in a civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government for more than a decade and have attacked Gulf neighbors with missiles and drones.
However, a 2022 truce between the country’s warring sides largely held until last week, when Yemen’s internationally recognized government said it had struck Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing.
The Houthis said Saudi Arabia was responsible and, in response, fired missiles at Abha airport in the kingdom’s mountainous southwest.
A senior Houthi official, politburo member Mohammad al-Farah, then warned in an interview on Iran’s Press TV website that if the situation kept escalating, Bab el-Mandeb would be closed.
The U.S. says Iran has armed, funded and trained the Houthis with help from Hezbollah. The Houthis deny being an Iranian proxy and say they develop their own weapons.
It is not clear how far the group’s stance on Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea stems from its own strategic priorities or is being made on Iran’s behalf.
What happened when Houthis attacked Red Sea ships before?
After Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began firing at Israel and on shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were doing so in support of Palestinians.
The attacks severely disrupted global shipping, prompting Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and other major companies to divert around Africa – a far longer, more expensive route.
Red Sea traffic has not recovered since, with traffic through the Suez Canal down 52% in 2025 versus 2023 levels and at its lowest in at least 50 years, Suez Canal Authority data shows.
A U.S.-led mission to restore free navigation in the Red Sea involved repeated strikes on Houthi targets and a campaign that shot down hundreds of drones and missiles.
But some Houthi attacks continued until last summer, only ending completely with the Gaza cease-fire in October.
Last month, the Houthis said they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed military attacks on Iran.
However, that threat was never acted on and shipping groups Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are resuming some Red Sea routes that they had abandoned during the Houthi attacks last year, Maersk said this month.
What have they done during the latest Iran war?
While Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups joined the war early with rocket and drone fire after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis had been comparatively quiet.
The group’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5: “Our fingers are on the trigger at any moment should developments warrant it.”
Iranian commanders have repeatedly warned that the Houthis could join the war. The Houthis launched a few missile and drone attacks on Israel in late March and early April.
Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani said on June 1 they could choke off the Red Sea.
That may now have changed with their announcement of the blockade on Monday against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for what they called the kingdom’s siege of its ports and airports, including last week’s strike.
Hungarian authorities announced on Monday they had launched an investigation into a major foreign investment deal with BYD that was brokered by a former foreign minister who last week stepped down from Parliament to accept a top position at the Chinese automaker.
Peter Szijjarto’s announcement last Wednesday that he would take the job at the world’s top electric carmaker prompted accusations of a conflict of interest and criticism over his role in facilitating substantial government subsidies to the company while in office.
Prime Minister Peter Magyar told lawmakers on Monday that Szijjarto, a close ally of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, had helped BYD while he was in office “with hundreds of billions (of forints) in public money, diplomatic support and state infrastructure.”
“We will examine all the decisions, negotiations and state commitments made by Peter Szijjarto that were related to the BYD Hungary investment,” Magyar said Monday.
He added the investigation would look into all subsidies, tax breaks, permits, environmental exemptions and publicly funded investments given to large multinational firms during Orban’s tenure.
“We will investigate who made these decisions, who prepared them, what professional warnings were ignored, and how much burden they left on Hungarian taxpayers, workers, local communities and the environment,” Magyar said.
Neither Szijjarto nor BYD have responded to Magyar’s allegations of conflict of interest while Szijjarto was in office. The former foreign minister has posed his new job as a “prestigious” opportunity to work for one of the “greatest success stories” in the automotive industry.
While serving in government, Szijjarto was instrumental in securing foreign investments in Hungary from Chinese companies, including his now-employer BYD, which received considerable state subsidies during his tenure.
In 2023, Szijjarto announced that BYD would open its first European factory in Hungary – allowing the conglomerate to skirt European Union import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imposed to protect the continent’s domestic auto manufacturing sector.
In 2025, Szijjarto also announced BYD would locate its European headquarters and a research and development center in Budapest and receive 20 billion forints ($63.7 million) in government assistance.
The investments were part of the Orban government’s push to make Hungary a global hub for lithium-ion battery manufacturing, largely by attracting Chinese battery manufacturers, who opened a series of plants across the country.
The moves led local residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians to protest over fears the new industry would exacerbate existing environmental problems, hit the country’s precious water supplies and further undermine its economy to China.
While foreign minister, Szijjarto also maintained close relations with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Breaking with nearly all of his EU counterparts, he frequently traveled to Moscow to negotiate agreements on purchasing Russian oil and gas and to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whom he referred to as his “friend.”
He was embroiled in controversy during Hungary’s 2026 election campaign when The Washington Post reported that he made regular phone calls to Lavrov during high-level EU meetings with “live reports on what’s been discussed.”
Szijjarto has dismissed the report while acknowledging that he conferred with Lavrov before and after EU foreign minister meetings about their agenda and decisions.
During a government news conference last week, Magyar said that “as far as I know,” an investigation had been launched concerning Szijjarto’s connections to the Russian government.
Diesel- and liquefied petroleum gas-powered cars in Türkiye’s vehicle fleet continue to decline steadily, as hybrid and electric vehicles maintain their rapid growth, the official data showed.
The total number of registered motor vehicles in Türkiye rose 6.7% year-over-year to 34.55 million by the end of June, from 32.37 million a year earlier, according to the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Passenger cars accounted for 51.7% of all registered vehicles, followed by motorcycles at 21.5%, light commercial vehicles at 14.4%, tractors at 6.8%, trucks at 3.1%, minibuses at 1.6%, buses at 0.6% and special-purpose vehicles at 0.3%.
Of the 194,740 vehicles newly registered in June, motorcycles made up 49.4%, while passenger cars accounted for 37.8%.
The transition in Türkiye’s auto market has leaped since 2020.
Gasoline-powered cars increased their share of the passenger car fleet to 31% by the end of last month, up from 24.4% in 2020. Their number rose to 5.55 million from 3.20 million over the period.
Diesel-powered cars remained the largest fuel category by number, increasing to 5.74 million from 5.01 million, but their share of the fleet fell to 32.1% from 38.3%.
LPG-powered cars rose in absolute terms to 5.25 million from 4.81 million, although their share declined to 29.4% from 36.7%.
Hybrid vehicles recorded the fastest growth among conventional powertrains, with registrations climbing to 846,813 by the end of June from just 33,690 in 2020. Their share of the passenger car fleet increased to 4.7% from 0.3%.
Electric vehicle adoption also accelerated. The number of registered battery-powered cars rose to 445,939 by the end of June, compared with only 2,797 in 2020. Their share of the passenger car fleet reached 2.5%, up from 0.1% in 2022.
Overall, Türkiye’s passenger car fleet grew to 17.87 million vehicles by the end of June, compared with 13.10 million in 2020.
As the United States and Israel went to war with Iran at the end of February, analysts predicted the price of crude oil could hit $150 a barrel or even rise as far as $200, with the fifth of global supply that transits the vital Strait of Hormuz suddenly cut off from world markets.
But, Brent crude futures peaked around $126 – comfortably below 2008’s all-time high of $147 – and averaged just $101 a barrel between the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 and June 11 when U.S. President Donald Trump called off strikes on Iran, before briefly retreating to pre-war levels of $70 in early July.
Below are some of the reasons why the oil price hasn’t gone crazy. Yet.
1. Chinese surprise
The biggest surprise was China, the world’s largest oil importer, which had slashed crude imports to the lowest in nearly a decade by June. Fuel exports were curbed, its population started using electric taxis instead of personal cars and its petrochemical sector also reduced volumes.
2. U.S. pumps more
The United States, the world’s largest oil producer, pumped more crude, with production reaching a record 13.93 million barrels per day by April. It also freed crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a record 400 million-barrel release coordinated by the International Energy Agency in March, helping cushion supply disruptions.
3. Trump burns bulls
U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly wrong-footed oil market bulls by making statements about peace agreements and the resumption of flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil market liquidity has dropped as many traders have become reluctant to make large bullish bets amid the risk of sudden market reversals.
“Everybody is bullish now, but nobody is long,” said Ilia Bouchouev of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
After driving their bullish position in Brent futures to its smallest this year in early July, funds then made their largest addition in six months in the week to July 14, according to data from the ICE exchange on Friday.
However, at around $14.8 billion based on Monday’s prices, this position is still more than 50% below late March’s six-year peak.
The market is suffering from headline fatigue, which reduces the price impact of fresh announcements, said Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen.
4. Hormuz flows rebound
Saudi Arabia, the biggest Gulf oil exporter, sharply increased shipments from its Red Sea Yanbu port, helping to offset the loss of barrels via the Strait of Hormuz.
Hormuz shipments briefly restarted in June, easing concerns about crude availability, but dropped again in July as the fighting resumed.
5. Amply supply of prompt physical cargoes
Traders say there is an ample supply of physical oil, limiting the price reaction to the latest escalation in the conflict. Crude oil differentials in Europe, such as North Sea Forties, that help set the global dated Brent benchmark have fallen to a discount from a record premium in April.
“There is a lot of prompt crude around for now,” said veteran trader Adi Imsirovic. “It may not last!”
Updating the nearly three-decade-old customs union, joining the “Made in EU” framework, and securing participation in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) would significantly strengthen Türkiye’s economic integration with the European Union, the head of the country’s exporters said Monday.
“If the customs union revision, the work related to ‘Made in EU’ and participation in this payment system (SEPA) are achieved together, we would reach a completely different position from where we are today,” Mustafa Gültepe, chair of the Türkiye Exporters Assembly (TIM), said.
Türkiye and the EU have been holding talks about the EU’s 41-country Single Euro Payments Area, which makes cross-border euro-currency payments cheaper, faster and more secure.
Earlier this month, Ankara said it had sent a letter of intent to join the system.
Gültepe said the move would significantly simplify payments between Turkish companies and European partners.
“Transfers would be carried out as if they were domestic transactions. Large companies may not face major difficulties in this area, but it would provide much greater support for SMEs, both those making and receiving payments,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA).
The EU accounts for around 45%-50% of Türkiye’s exports, with the share exceeding 65% in some sectors.
Lobbying for ‘Made in EU’
Gültepe said exporter groups continue lobbying efforts regarding Türkiye’s inclusion in the EU’s “Made in EU” initiative, while the Trade Ministry is also working on the issue.
He said discussions around the framework, particularly its potential impact on the automotive industry, have not yet been concluded.
“The interim assessment is positive, but we need to remain synchronized with them in the next phase,” he said.
Gültepe warned that EU trade agreements with third countries should not disadvantage Türkiye because of the customs union arrangement.
“Work on ‘Made in EU’ continues, especially through our lobbying efforts. Intensive efforts are underway. We hope to remain included,” he noted.
At the same time, Gültepe reiterated that the customs union “genuinely” needs to be revised.
“The agreements the EU signs with third countries are harming Türkiye,” he said.
For decades, Türkiye and the bloc enjoyed good trade ties and cooperation on migration. However, relations have been strained over multiple issues, including the prolonged process of expansion of the scope of the customs union agreement and maritime issues with Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration.
The deeper 1990s-era trade agreement would be expanded to services, farm goods and public procurement. The current deal only covers a limited range of industrial products.
Business groups have long argued that the deal is outdated and ill-suited for today’s trade environment.
Gültepe highlighted Türkiye’s proximity to Europe, logistics advantages, manufacturing capacity and flexible production structure as key strengths.
“It is a market that demands flexibility, and we have flexibility. It demands quality, and we have quality. Beyond price flexibility, we currently have almost everything Europe is looking for,” he said.
Need for faster export growth
Türkiye’s exports rose 3.6% year-over-year in the first half of 2026 to $136.1 billion, a performance Gültepe described as positive given the impact of geopolitical tensions in the Gulf region and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Türkiye recorded $278 billion in exports over the past 12 months, but Gültepe stressed that annual growth rates of 3%-5% were insufficient.
“Türkiye needs to grow at double-digit rates,” he said, adding that the country’s long-term vision should be to become one of the world’s top 10 exporting nations.
He said achieving that goal would require contributions from all 27 sectors, including services, and called for investments in industries that currently contribute to the country’s current account deficit.
Gültepe said Türkiye’s exporters aim to reach $500 billion in total exports, including services, by 2030, compared with around $400 billion currently.
He said technology-intensive sectors would play a key role in achieving the target, adding that industries with labor costs below 20% of production expenses have greater growth potential as rising costs have weakened Türkiye’s price competitiveness.
Higher costs have made it harder for existing exporters to defend their markets and reduced the number of companies entering export markets for the first time, Gültepe said, adding that the number of first-time exporters has fallen by around half over the past 12-18 months.
He said the most difficult period should be behind the sector and predicted that Türkiye could achieve stronger growth from 2027, with monthly double-digit export increases across industries.
For about four decades, Suzuki cars have been a fixture on Indian roads.
By relentlessly keeping prices and operating costs low, the Japanese automaker helped millions buy cars, while hatchbacks made by its Indian unit, Maruti Suzuki, accounted for between half and four-fifths of the country’s new car sales in recent decades.
But as Indians got richer, they gravitated to bigger and flashier rides – and the automaker’s emphasis on affordability started to become a drag. Maruti Suzuki’s share of the world’s third-largest auto market now lingers at around 39%, near an all-time low.
Suzuki’s struggles reflect how cost-sensitive managers in Japan were slow to adapt to the changing tastes of newly affluent Indians, four people familiar with its business told Reuters. Executives, the people said, for years felt that demand for sunroofs, advanced technology and SUVs hadn’t trumped questions of affordability for Indians.
It marks the first report that details the deliberations between Indian and Japanese executives at Suzuki as they struggled to pivot beyond a long-successful strategy that emphasized value before almost everything else.
Maruti Suzuki managers first floated the idea of adding sunroofs about a decade ago, the people said. But Japanese bosses considered the feature – which has become a symbol of upward mobility in India – impractical given India’s extreme heat and dusty roads. They worried that adding a more powerful air conditioning unit and strengthening the cabin to accommodate the panel would increase costs and distract from Suzuki’s mission of providing affordable transport.
The carmaker didn’t introduce sunroofs until 2022. By then, fast-growing domestic rivals Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra – which both currently have a market share of around 14% – had sunroofs as standard features on between a quarter and a third of their cars sold in India, according to data from auto research firm JATO Dynamics.
This account of the missteps that eroded Suzuki’s iron grip on India and its subsequent efforts to woo customers back is based on interviews with more than 20 people, including executives, suppliers and others with direct knowledge of the automaker and its Indian business. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media.
Maruti’s head of corporate affairs, Rahul Bharti, said in an interview that Japanese managers were not reluctant to embrace the changing tastes of local customers. Instead, he said, they had prioritized factors such as cost and climate, as well as emissions and safety considerations.
Indian and Japanese executives engage in “extensive” talks before introducing products and new features, Bharti said. Maruti’s market share had declined recently because of a collapse in demand for small cars, the automaker’s slow rollout of SUVs and its 2020 decision to stop selling diesel cars, he added.
While it is committed to building affordable and compact models, Suzuki has now directed local managers to “pay more attention to the Indian customer,” Bharti said.
To be sure, Maruti Suzuki still runs a lucrative business in India. Revenue has more than doubled over the last five years to $19 billion and profit tripled to $1.5 billion as margins improved. About 60% of the 3.3 million cars Suzuki sold in the last financial year were in India, and Maruti contributed nearly half of its profits. But while it is making more money from selling fewer cars, the company has fallen short of chief executive Toshihiro Suzuki’s goal of owning half the market.
Maruti Suzuki also risks being seen by younger drivers as a “brand for their parents or grandparents,” said Toshihide Kinoshita, an automotive analyst at Nomura Securities.
In India, the typical buyer of a new car is in their mid-30s. The average age in the United States is 51, according to data from Cox Automotive.
The people’s car
Japanese car manufacturers increasingly see India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, as a lifeline.
Many face an existential threat in traditional strongholds like Southeast Asia from the low costs and fast-paced innovation of Chinese rivals. They are also being squeezed by tariffs in the United States and slow growth at home as Japan’s population shrinks.
Chinese EV makers, however, are largely shut out of India, which has increased scrutiny of investments from China after a deadly border clash between the two countries in 2020. Japanese carmakers sense the opportunity: Toyota and Suzuki have announced plans to spend a cumulative $11 billion to expand manufacturing and other operations in India by 2030.
Maruti Suzuki is now a symbol of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to turn India into a global manufacturing hub.
Suzuki first invested in Maruti in the early 1980s when the Indian brand was state-owned. Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to provide a “people’s car” to fulfill the dream of her late son Sanjay, an auto enthusiast who had sought to bring affordable mobility to the middle class.
The Maruti 800 arrived in 1983. It was priced at around $9,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars and became synonymous with India’s modernization. Over three decades, Maruti sold nearly 3 million of the small hatchbacks. Such was the scale of Suzuki’s dominance in India that its former CEO Osamu Suzuki said he aimed to keep a 50% market share “for eternity.”
India’s economy has grown some 18-fold since Suzuki entered the market. Yet Suzuki’s cost-control culture meant managers initially faced resistance when they lobbied to offer advanced driver assistance systems that Mahindra introduced around 2021, some four years before Maruti, three people said.
For many buyers, the modernity and aspiration that Maruti once represented is found in Tata and Mahindra’s feature-laden SUVs, rather than Maruti’s workaday models. Maruti does not have “the bells and whistles” that customers now want, said JATO Dynamics president Ravi Bhatia.
One erstwhile loyalist looking elsewhere is Anil Tiwari, who is seeking a car to supplement his family’s 17-year-old Maruti Alto hatchback. The insurance agent has narrowed his choices down to a Mahindra or a Toyota SUV after his wife and children demanded a sunroof and a large infotainment display, among other technologies.
“My wife and children want the best,” he said.
Fightback?
Maruti has been here before. Its market share dipped below 40% in 2011, though newer models and an expanded sales network helped it recover.
This time, competition is fiercer. Better-equipped rivals and the fall in market share mean Suzuki now faces its toughest situation in India “in the last 40 years,” chief executive Suzuki told reporters at the Tokyo auto show last year.
In an attempt to regain dominance, Suzuki is expanding R&D teams at Maruti and giving executives flexibility to make more decisions locally, five people told Reuters. It aims to cut the average product development time to 36 months from 48 months, four sources added.
Maruti has also built more car-testing labs in India to speed up design and execution, Bharti told Reuters.
Maruti has introduced pricier and more design-forward cars, including a three-row minivan that starts at about $25,000. It plans seven more SUVs by 2030, which will join a recently released model that has a sunroof and advanced driver assistance systems.
The brand is also reversing its decision not to use large display screens in some vehicles, according to three sources, who said Japanese executives had felt they would be a distraction for drivers.
Bharti confirmed that Maruti and Suzuki executives had discussed those concerns. Large displays and similar features are always “on the cards,” he said, though the company continues to weigh customer demand against the realities of Indian driving conditions.
One open question is whether Maruti’s more expensive cars will sell. The brand’s association with affordability means Indians willing to spend more usually don’t consider Maruti, six people told Reuters. Less than 3% of Maruti’s sales come from cars priced above $15,500, compared with over 21% for the rest of the industry, according to JATO Dynamics.
That perception is shaping the choice for buyers like Deepanshu Singhal, a sales executive who plans to upgrade to a Mahindra or Toyota SUV from the Maruti Dzire sedan he has driven for seven years.
“I’d rather spend a little more money for a better car that has some freshness and newness,” he said.
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