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Following the mild sales recovery seen in the festive month of October, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd increased the production of more vehicles in November than a year earlier. Output rose year-on-year to 141,834 vehicles in November by 4.33 percent, India’s largest carmaker said in a BSE statement.
Following the mild sales recovery seen in the festive month of October, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd produced more vehicles in November than a year earlier.
Output rose year-on-year to 141,834 vehicles in November by 4.33 percent, India’s largest carmaker said in a BSE statement.
Utility vehicle products such as the Vitara Brezza, XL6 and Ertiga increased 18% year-on-year to 27,187 units in November, while compact hatchback cars such as the Wagon R, Celerio and Baleno increased 18.82% year-on-year to 78,133 units.
Increased demand for diesel vehicles such as the compact sport utility vehicle Vitara Brezza and new products such as the multi-purpose vehicle XL6 have prompted the company to increase production.
Maruti has also announced that from 1 April 2020 it will stop the production of diesel vehicles and a large number of customers are receiving increased discounts from these goods.
In its dealerships, the New Delhi-based automaker has depleted a significant portion of its Bharat Stage (BS)-IV vehicle inventory and has therefore committed to increasing production as 80% of its product portfolio complies with BS-VI emission standards.
India will move from April to the more stringent BS-VI emission standards, resulting in several car manufacturers providing heavy discounts to clear existing BS-IV vehicle stocks.
Despite the release of its latest S-Presso small car, Maruti’s vehicle production in the mini-car segment slipped to 24,052 units in November by 20 percent year-on-year.
In November, the rise in vehicle production follows a 4.5 percent year-on-year growth in Maruti’s wholesale or industrial dispatches to 144,277 units in October. This was the company’s first seven-month increase due to a high level of discounts across most of its product range.
However, Maruti’s wholesales declined to 141,400 units year-on-year by 3.2 percent in November.
Domestic car sales have declined sharply since the September quarter of 2018-19 due to an overall slowdown in the consumption and liquidity crisis in financial institutions following the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. Maruti’s wholesales fell by 20.4 percent to 958,373 vehicles from April to October 2019.
In November, analysts said Maruti, who sold 144,277 vehicles on the local market in October, fared better than expected. Maruti’s mini and compact small car sales increased 2 percent y-o-y last month to 104,319 units. Growth was driven largely by demand for models like Swift, New WagonR and the Baleno luxury hatchback.
“The wholesales of November are better than expected. The demand continues to be driven by discounts and promotional offers given during the festive season, “said Gaurav Vangaal, country lead, light vehicle production forecast, IHS Markit.” This worked well to reduce inventory for Maruti Suzuki.
Meanwhile, incremental growth is coming on the back of new launches such as the XL6, S-Presso, New WagonR”.
