Maruti Suzuki to rope in regional banks to push sales

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Hyderabad, Chennai, Nov 20: India's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, has decided to rope in regional banks to push its sales, anticipating a near flat growth in the current fiscal. The company will use regional banks, which have a good presence in the semi-urban and rural areas across the country, to make its vehicles, particularly the just launched hatchback A-star, accessible to customers.

Maruti has returned a growth of 2.5% as of October, against a projected growth of 10% at the beginning of the fiscal. "We are trying to maintain the current growth rate of 2.5% till the year-end," said an official of the company. "But we have no clue how things will turn out in the next few months," he added. In this context, the company has decided to tap banks, which are regionally strong, to offset the slowdown in sales.

"The lack of liquidity in the market will be a major problem for us. Even if we report a flat growth for the fiscal, we will be happy," the official noted. The company has sold nearly 7.5 lakh cars during last fiscal. "We are looking at a sale of 20,000 A-stars in the current fiscal. We hope the tie ups with regional banks will help us push the car deep into the market, including second-tier cities and rural areas," the official said.

He also mentioned that the company has spent nearly Rs 100 crore in setting up an exclusive car terminal at Mundra Port, in association with Adani group, for export of A-stars to European countries. It has also made arrangements with the Railways to transport cars from its manufacturing plant to Mundra Port to avoid logistic problems.

Meanwhile, Maruti is realigning its production capacities to reduce the waiting period for its Swift and Dzire models. This is another strategy being adopted by the company to push up sales, said IV Rao, managing executive officer-engineering of the company.