Maruti Suzuki, the country’s leading passenger car maker who has continued to rule the passenger car market with its products is slowly starting to lose market share. This is mainly attributed to the long labour unrest that took place in the Manesar plant recently and also the introduction of many new models from the rival car makers that are in direct competition to the company’s products. The company total market share was 40.3% of the total 977,201 vehicles that were sold until August compared to the last year’s figure of 44.9% according to report from the auto industry lobby Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
The main gainers in this fiscal were Toyota Kirloskar Motor with a rise in market share from 3.3% to 5.6%. Also share of Volkswagen has surged from 1.2% to 3.2%. It is being predicted that the company’s share could fall further. Sales in the month of September were down by 17.2% from a year earlier due to the month and a half long stand-off between the management and the workers at its Manesar plant in Haryana. A similar incident also happened in April.
“The recent strikes must have impacted our market share as we were not producing what we should have, but we are ramping up production to meet the demand ahead of the festive season,” said R. Dayal, Maruti Suzuki’s executive director, production and engineering. “We will have to increase our production to make up for the shortfall in sales.” He also added that the production of Swift will be ramped up 20,000 units in order to reduce the waiting period for the car. The new version of the Swift has crossed 100,000 bookings since its launch on 17 August. Currently the customers are facing a waiting period of six-eight months. The company is shifting the production of Swift back to Manesar after the strike was put to an end. Also the production of the A-Star and SX4 will be shifted back to the same plant.
Source – Live Mint
