Suzuki: Secrets of a Market Leader

With 17,650 passenger cars registered, Magyar Suzuki Corporation (SMC) reached 14.48% market share on the domestic new passenger car market in 2021. The brand has been leading new passenger car sales in Hungary for six years.

The Japanese brand, which sells hybrid passenger cars in the EU markets in line with the group’s green aspirations, will further expand in 2022 its hybrid selection produced in its Hungarian manufacturing facility in Esztergom, northwest of Budapest. The new hybrid system was made available first in the Vitara model this January and will be followed by the new S-Cross later in the second half of the year.

Investments
With the significant (HUF 16.3 billion) greenfield investment, Suzuki Motor Corporation revived Hungarian car manufacturing after a 50-year hiatus. SMC has steadfastly believed in this country for 30 years and has invested a total of HUF 538 billion in Hungary by 2020, meaning EUR 38.1 million calculated at the exchange rates prevailing at the time of the investment. Since April 2019, the Hungarian plant has been the parent company’s European-based supply center for spare parts and accessories, and its leading automotive center in Central Europe.

Leading philosophy
Suzuki Group believes that the assistance of employees is essential to achieve the company goals and has been a driver of the company’s success in the past one hundred years. Suzuki aims to provide accessible mobility to its customers with cars, motorcycles and outboard engines. “We have reliable, durable, and incomparably compact as well as environmentally friendly products that are easy to use and moreover, available to our customers for relevant value for money. We would like to enrich both our employees and our dealers, and we strive to be of value to the society of every country where we deliver our products. Driving them smuggles merriment into the everyday life,” according to Masato Atsumi, who has been the Managing Director of Magyar Suzuki since 2021.

Innovations and investments
Magyar Suzuki has been leading a five-year research and development (R&D) project implemented in a consortium ending soon, introducing innovations in parts supply and other technology solutions. This program has received HUF 2,584 billion funding within GINOP 2.2.1-15- 2016-00015 economic development and innovation operational program.
Suzuki is dedicated to a greener future. The Group would like to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 in all factory units, and for all products globally. It plans to significantly increase the share of electrically driven models in its product range from 2030 onwards. As part of this journey, and in line with the EU regulations, the mass production of hybrid Vitara and SX4 S-CROSS models began in Esztergom for European markets in December 2019. In 2020, 65% of production was of hybrid cars. Magyar Suzuki constantly modernizes its production technologies with steps in the direction of carbon neutrality by using its own engineering staff. This includes independent implementation of test productions in the spirit of the so-called ‘greening, technical evaluation of test cars and determination, implementation and monitoring of development directions based on them, independent implementation of subtasks in projects related to the homologation of its products.

Greener Plant, Greener Cars
Suzuki is currently working on the development of electric technology required to reduce emissions globally. The company entrusted its subsidiaries, including Magyar Suzuki, to work out and implement the methods within the given target date, that is, 2050. All employees have a role to play in this, just as in all previous developments and optimizations. Suzuki colleagues have a practice of putting forward their proposals. In the last twelve years, they have saved Magyar Suzuki a total of HUF three billion with their development and optimisation ideas. Thanks to such proposals, the company has launched the Greener Plant, Greener Cars internal program to incorporate CO₂ emission reducing technologies into manufacturing processes and cars. Suzuki Group invests 1,000 billion yen (EUR eight billion) in R&D up until the 2025 financial year, including the development of hybrid and electric vehicles, maintaining the well-known high quality of the brand at the same time.