Will ARIA be another winner?

Tata announced its entry into the MPV segment with Indicruz in early 2008. And now after the actual revelation of the vehicle as Aria powered by the popular 2.2 DICOR engine, the MPV market is getting geared up. The other players in this crossover segment are Innova, with a leading market share and Xylo following it.

But for the first time, it was surprising to see Tata going ahead of competitiors with Aria. The vehicle is priced at around Rs 12 lakhs to Rs 14 lakhs. Though it is fully loaded with features like 4 wheel drive, GPS, Parking sensors, dual ACs, 6 Airbags, ABS, head mounted LCDs, etc., which justifies this cost, its quite interesting to see the way Tata wants to position this vehicle. It seems like Tata wants to position this for a premium segment in the SUV target market.

But, there is a check. At this price point, customers would expect the car to be of a better quality than Innova. And customers perceive Tata cars are always not comparable with Japanese or European cars. This perception of the brand may demean the image Aria wanted to enjoy. The way Tata is going to address this gap will decide the success rate of Aria.

This will also test the strength of brand Tata and its marketing abities in this new segment. The live example for this from Tata's stable is the Safari. Though Safari was positioned at a premium segment through its communications, the product quality never met the expectations of the consumers in its segment. Though not a  failure neither was it a success. Hope Tata took some lessons from it and play the game differently.