The SUV Boom has Reached India's Used Car Market, but Hatchbacks Still Hold their Ground

NewsVoir
Gurugram (Haryana) [India], May 22: India's love affair with sport utility vehicles is one of the most documented stories in the country's automotive industry. The Cars24 and Team BHP Gears of Growth 2025 report confirms that this shift has reached the used car market as well, with SUV share climbing from 15 percent in 2023 to 32 percent in 2025. And yet, when it comes to the top 10 most-bought used cars in India, only one SUV makes the cut. The Hyundai Creta, ranked ninth with a 2.05 percent share, stands alone.
The report frames this as one of the more interesting tensions in India's used car market in 2025. As it notes, compact SUVs are gaining ground but remain a secondary choice, with Creta at number nine reflecting growing aspiration without yet challenging hatchback dominance.
The hatchback wall the Creta is up against
To understand why only one SUV has cracked the top 10, it helps to look at what is occupying the rest of it. The Gears of Growth 2025 report lists Maruti Swift at the top with a 4.93 percent share, followed by Wagon R at 3.47 percent and Hyundai i10 at 3.46 percent. Honda City sits at fourth, Swift Dzire at fifth, Baleno at sixth, Grand i10 at seventh and Elite i20 at eighth. After Creta at ninth, the Renault Kwid closes the list at tenth.
Seven of the top 10 are hatchbacks. Two are sedans. Just one is an SUV. The report describes hatchbacks as the backbone of India's used car market, with the Swift, Wagon R and i10 leading the charts thanks to their reliability, practicality and low running costs. These are the qualities that translate most directly into used car demand, and they sit at the heart of why the SUV revolution has been slower to flow into resale than into new car sales.
Why Creta is the SUV that broke through
The Creta's presence in the top 10 is not accidental. The Gears of Growth 2025 report places the Creta on a second, more selective list as well: the country's premium used car set. According to the report, premium used car demand is led by models such as Creta, City, Nexon and Elite i20, indicating a strong appetite for feature-rich vehicles.
This dual presence, both in the volume top 10 and in the premium list, makes the Creta something of a category translator. It is the SUV that has crossed over from aspiration to actual transaction volume. The report attributes this kind of premium pull to feature depth, safety credentials and brand trust emerging as key decision drivers in premium used car purchases. The Creta, having been one of India's most-bought new SUVs for years, naturally has the scale and brand equity to dominate this corner of the used market.
The aspiration gap, and what it tells us
The interesting question the Gears of Growth 2025 report surfaces is why other SUVs have not joined Creta in the top 10. Body type data shows that SUVs have moved from 15 percent share in 2023 to 19 percent in 2024 and 32 percent in 2025, a near-doubling in two years. Sedans, over the same period, have collapsed from 28 percent to 16 percent. The shift is real and rapid. But it is not yet translating into a multi-SUV presence at the top of the model rankings.
Part of the answer lies in the way used car markets work. New cars become used cars only after a few years of ownership, and the recent SUV boom in India is still working its way through the resale cycle. The report flags this directly in its analysis of average selling prices, noting that one of the factors pushing ASP upward is the supply constraints in newer vehicles, with limited availability of lightly-used, recent model-year cars. SUV demand, in other words, is running ahead of SUV supply in the used car market.
What this means for the Indian auto industry
The Creta's position as the sole SUV in India's top 10 used cars list is a useful corrective to the assumption that the SUV wave has comprehensively rewritten Indian car buying. Hatchbacks still account for 52 percent of total volume. Sedans hold 16 percent. SUVs, despite their headline growth, are at 32 percent in aggregate but represented by only one model at the top of the rankings.
This points to two parallel realities. The first is that aspiration in India's used car market is moving quickly, and SUVs are likely to occupy more slots in the top 10 in the years ahead as today's new SUVs become tomorrow's used cars. The second is that the practical, value-driven hatchback remains the structural foundation of the market. The Gears of Growth 2025 report captures the moment when both realities sit in clear, measurable balance. For now, the Creta stands as the bridge between these two worlds, the one SUV that has crossed over into the volume top 10.
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