Maruti Suzuki India’s October passenger vehicle sales totalled 140,337. Though on a year-on-year basis, the market leader clocked a 28 percent jump in sales as chip supply eased significantly from last year, the sequential performance is relatively mute on account of dealership stocks coming down as per the company. The carmaker’s October sales remained flat compared to the 148, 380 vehicles sold in September.
On the exports front as well, the October reading is around the same level as September at 20,448 vehicles. Even on a year-on-year comparison, this reading is lower than what it fared in October 2021 when it exported 21,322 vehicles. Timing
Baleno, Swift and WagonR feature amongst the top 10 models in October. The sales of UVs like Brezza, Ertiga, S-Cross, XL6, Grand Vitara continued to see some uptick however, clocking 30,971 units compared to 27,081 units last October. In the second half of this fiscal as well, the upper end of the market is likely to garner more sales, given the evolving customer preferences.
Speaking after the monthly sales announcement, Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director at Maruti Suzuki India said, “77,000 booking were received for Grand Vitara and overall bookings in October are close to 18,000. The market share in mid-SUV segment is growing for last two months and is close to 12 percent or higher.”
For the first half of FY2023, Maruti Suzuki clocked sales of 934,887 units compared to 702,083 units sold in the first half of last fiscal. According to the company statement, “shortage of electronic components had a minor impact on the production of vehicles, mainly in domestic models.”
However, the carmaker is hopeful about matching industry growth levels next year. Addressing the earning call after the Q2 numbers were announced in October-end, Maruti Suzuki Chairman, R C Bhargava said that he expects “growth rate for the overall auto industry is seen around 8 percent for next year and I expect Maruti to grow around the same levels.”
Going forward the company is targeting the SUV segments and CNG is a big way as potential growth drivers. 10 of the 16 new launches will be offering CNG. Interesting the CNG, often seen as a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional fossil fuel, has seen almost 8 percent spike in prices recently.
