On July 23, 2015, India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki launched a premium range of dealerships with the Nexa nameplate. The first showroom was inaugurated in the national capital. Now, four years down the line, Nexa has expanded its footprint to 363 outlets across 206 cities and towns in India. The company claims that its Nexa channel has close to 1 million customers and nearly half of them are under 35 years of age. Maruti Suzuki also claims that nearly 70 per cent of total sales from the Nexa channel are from first-time car buyers.

The first model that Maruti Suzuki started retailing from its range of premium dealerships was the S-Cross. The model, which falls in the compact crossover category, has received a mid-life update since then. In addition to the S-Cross, the Nexa chain now also retails the Baleno, Ignis and the Ciaz models. While the hatchbacks have always been at Nexa ever since they were first introduced, the sedan was earlier part of Maruti Suzuki’s Arena channel.

In the first two years of its launch, Nexa had already expanded 250+ outlets. And, as mentioned above, the next two years has seen the addition of approximately 100 more. To reach out to more promising and upcoming markets in India, Maruti Suzuki introduced Nexa Mobile Terminals in the month of June this year. The first of the lot penetrated Haryana and Punjab, while the second one was injected in Odisha. Put together, both terminals managed to cover 10 cities in 45 days, with more than a thousand visits in total.

Out of the four models that Nexa currently retails, only one has become BSVI-compliant (Bharat Stage VI). That said, others are not far behind and will soon be upgraded to comply with the stricter emission norms. Reports suggest that an Ertiga-based, six-seater MPV will be launched in the month of August this year and it will become the fifth model to retail from the Nexa channel.