Maruti Suzuki is flying high for being so successful while their chairman goes on to make over-confident statements in the media.
Maruti Suzuki is the largest passenger vehicle manufacturer in India. The company also has the biggest sales and service network and their tin-foil vehicles sell like hot cakes here. What does this mean? It means that the company is enjoying good profits always. It also means that top officials from the company are smoking something really exotic these days. First they come up with senseless limited editions of their vehicles, then they promote their vehicles’ safety, moments after global tests conclude that they are unsafe (a la Swift) and then the company’s chairman goes on to make confused statements.
In November 2014, RC Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki was quoted saying, “If the excise duty goes up, it could easily push the car industry into the negative territory”, when asked about the effects of the hike in excise duties for cars starting from 2015. He meant to say that the automotive industry will see a de-growth in sales if the government hikes the duties. The very same person has again been quoted on 7th January 2015 saying that excise hikes won’t affect Maruti Suzuki’s sales. Now we really don’t need to explain whether Maruti’s head is confused or not.
According to him, the reduced cost of petrol and the decreasing interest rates on EMIs will offset the high excise duties. In other news, there is possibly going to be a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed between India and Europe where the European market will get a free access to the Indian auto market. But again, Mr Bhargava seems quite over-confident when he says that this FTA won’t affect Indian companies like Maruti Suzuki who make use of a high level of localisation for their components. According to him, there is nobody in Europe who can compete with Indian manufacturers having local content.
Okay Mr. Bhargava, we get your point. You mean to say that Indian car companies produce better quality vehicles than Europeans? Really? Forget Europeans, heck even Koreans produce better quality vehicles than what your company does. It seems Maruti Suzuki is flying high after being so successful but it is just a matter of time before Hyundai overtakes Maruti because being the leader in the market (and also the oldest manufacturer here), Maruti simply doesn’t want to do anything to promote safety or lead from the front!
