Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest automaker, is looking to break into the premium car segment with its new seven seater, as a growing number of buyers opt for bigger, feature-packed cars.

Maruti, known for small and compact cars that are mostly priced below 1 million rupees ($12,000), on Wednesday launched the Invicto people mover starting from around 2.5 million rupees ($30,000).

The company aims to raise its brand image and enter a segment where it sees rapid growth as the purchasing power of Indian car buyers increases, chief executive Hisashi Takeuchi said at the launch.

"This is really a big challenge for us to go into this segment because we have no experience selling that sort of product so far," Takeuchi told reporters.

But the market is evolving fast and without a premium multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) Maruti risks losing share to rivals, Takeuchi said.

Maruti, majority owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor, made its name as a mass market car brand offering affordable prices and low maintenance costs. When it comes to premium cars, or those typically priced above 2 million rupees, buyers tend to turn to the likes of Toyota Motor or Volkswagen , say analysts.

Now there is a growing crop of Indians splurging on bigger, fancier cars, driving up sales of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and MPVs that have touched record levels in the post-COVID spending boom.

Such vehicles made up more than 50% of total cars sold in the country last fiscal year versus 28% five years ago, industry data showed.

Meanwhile, the share of small and compact cars priced below 1 million rupees slipped to 60% of India's total car sales last fiscal year, from around 85% in fiscal year 2018-19. This is expected to fall further.

For Maruti, it has been a similar story.

Sales of cars priced below 1 million rupees fell to about 84% last fiscal year from 97% five years ago, said Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer, marketing and sales at Maruti on the sidelines of the launch.

The company hopes the Invicto, which means undefeated in Latin, will create a premium halo that will "rub off" on sales of its other models, Srivastava said.

The bulk of Maruti's sales - about 53% - still come from small and compact cars but this is expected to fall to about 47%-48% as it launches models like the Invicto and sales of its SUVs pick up, said Srivastava.

($1 = 82.1656 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Aditi Shah Editing by Mark Potter)