Most customers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd's recently launched Celerio hatchback are opting for the expensive automatic variant, dropping a strong hint that Indians are ready to pay more for effortless drive.

As per available figures, Maruti Suzuki has received nearly 20,000 booking-orders for the Celerio hatchback within the first twenty days of its launch.  It means the manufacturer has been receiving 1,000 booking orders, on average, per day for the new hatchback.

Out of those bookings, 51 per cent are for the automated manual transmission (AMT) version of the car.

The company has admitted that the bookings for the AMT variant of the Celerio have exceeded their estimates.  The company had estimated the AMT variant of the Celerio to account for just 25-30 per cent of total sales of the new car.

The AMT variant of the Celerio starts at Rs 4.14 lakh, just 38 thousands rupees more than the manual variant that starts at Rs 3.76 lakh.  Thus, prospective buyers are ready to fork out the extra little bit to enjoy technically advanced features.

Currently, Maruti Suzuki is importing the AMT system for the car from Magneto Marelli, but the company has plans to localize it by 2015.