Maruti Suzuki will be increasing production capacity of its AMT equipped cars. It has proposed to treble its production capacity to 12,000 units to curb the ever rising demand for automatics in India.
Automatics have been gaining popularity ever since Maruti Suzuki launched its hatchback the Celerio, equipped with an AMT gearbox. The company now plans to treble the production capacity of its AMT (Automated Manual Transmission) units to curb the ever rising demand for automatics in the country. The Indo-Japanese automaker is planning to double its AMT capacity from 4000 units to 8000 units a month. This production capacity can be further increased up to 12,000 units depending on future demands making it three times the current production capacity. The step will ease the capacity constraints on models like the Celerio AMT and the Alto K10 AMT according to the company management.
Stats reveal that the share of first time car buyers for Maruti Suzuki increased to 46 percent in the first quarter of this fiscal as against 43 percent in the last 2-3 years. The trend towards petrol vehicles continue to see a rise as customers prefer petrol cars over diesels due to the narrowing difference between petrol and diesel fuel prices. Another reason that could be responsible for popularity of petrol automatics is the fact that more and more manufacturers are advertising their cars with automatic transmissions which helps gather attention of a potential buyer. Also, petrols are much more refined, easier to drive and the fact that AMTs offer fuel efficiency similar to their manual counterparts helps seal the deal.
Maruti Suzuki launched the Celerio AMT in February last year. The concept of an affordable automatic hatchback was well received by young buyers and it got off to a good start. Maruti then took AMT technology to the masses with the launch of the Alto K10 AMT in November. Few days back, we also reported that Maruti is testing the Swift DZire diesel with an AMT gearbox near its plant in Manesar, Haryana. The DZire AMT will be squarely aimed at the Tata Zest AMT which is the only car in its segment to offer a diesel automatic. Analysts say that new launches could help growth of sales in the passenger vehicles market, so expecting a Ciaz AMT wouldn’t be wrong after the launch of the DZire AMT somewhere around this festive season.
