When it comes to new launches, most big players in the auto industry are now dreaming small.

And the 'small' car companies are thinking smaller. Unlike this year, from 2004 onwards most of the action in the automart will take place in the small car segment.

From the impending launch of Hyundai's B-segment hatchback to Tata's ambitious Rs 100,000 car project every auto-maker is eyeing a bigger piece of the small car segment.

There are others too. General Motors is talking about relaunching the Daewoo Matiz as the Chevrolet Spark and offering some serious competition to the Hyundai Xing.

Hyundai in the meanwhile is readying itself to unleash its B-segment hatchback Getz and take on the Fiat Palio and the Corsa Swing.

There are tread marks to suggest that a hatchback from Maruti possibly based on the Liana platform and a small car from Toyota on the Yaris platform could be driving their way into the country.

Car companies which have turned up their noses at the small car segment are now coming around and getting their act together to tap the huge A and B segment market.

"No carmaker in India can afford to ignore the A and B segments if they intend to be volumes players. Everybody wants to do a Maruti but are waiting to get the product and the pricing right," said a leading industry analyst.

Sample this: Maruti's A and B segment offerings (read, 800, Zen, Alto and Wagon R) have sold 180,000 cars of the total 375,000 passenger cars sold in the April-October 2003 period which gives only Maruti's small cars a 48 per cent market share in a market with nearly ten other players.

Maruti itself has made its intentions to remaining a big 'small' company clear. "We have the Esteem and the Baleno for Maruti loyalists who want to upgrade to a C segment car but our focus will always be trained on the A and B segments," said a senior official of the company.

Dismissing it as wishful thinking on the part of competitors, the company has yet again shot down rumours of phasing out their bread and butter brand the 800 and replacing it with the Alto.

Though there has been much debate of the workability of Tata's big Rs 100,000 car dream other auto companies are already on their way to cashing in on the huge margin that separates the high-end motorcycles from the Maruti 800.