Maruti Suzuki to report highest ever sales in 2014 of 11.48 lakh units

Market leader Maruti Suzuki India is all set to romp home with its highest ever sales this calendar year, notching figures of 11,48,000 units by the year-end as against its earlier highest year-end sales of 10,60,000 vehicles in 2010, according to chairman RC Bhargava.

In terms of domestic market share, Maruti Suzuki improved its position, growing 4.1 percent at 44.8 percent between April-November 2014. This was against its market share of 40.7 percent in the corresponding period in 2013. Between January-December 2014, Maruti Suzuki’s market share climbed up 3.7 percent at around 45 percent.

Its auto gearshift-driven cars – the Celerio and the Alto K10 – continue to see huge demand and there is a waiting period of 16-18 weeks for the Celerio and 16 weeks for the Alto.  The Celerio AGS trim retained its 40 percent hold of the total sales with the Alto K10 AGS at 25-30 percent, says R S Kalsi, head (domestic marketing and sales), Maruti Suzuki India.

Kalsi says that the industry should end this fiscal with a growth of around 5-6 percent from the current 2.7 percent growth on the back of sales of Maruti Suzuki, Honda Cars India and Hyundai Motor India, provided the excise duty relief, extended in the Union Budget, continue. However, Maruti’s growth will be higher than the industry average, ending the year and FY2015-16 with double-digit growth.

The company has yet to arrive at a decision on raising car prices by almost 4 percent due to higher input costs; this will be finalised depending on continuation of excise duty cuts after December 31.

Maruti Suzuki will roll out its new S-Cross model in the first half of 2015 when its first foray into the LCV segment with the Carry will be benchmarked. The Carry will be introduced in select 3-4 locations with separate outlets and based on customer demand will be expanded into other regions. The Carry LCV will be launched in a diesel version to be followed by a CNG edition.

“We are new in this segment and don’t know much about commercial vehicles. So this select rollout will enable us to study the market and learn the business,” said Bhargava.

Interestingly, Maruti expects its diesel product portfolio to stabilise at about 30 percent in 2015 from 33 percent in the first half of the FY. The diesel portfolio of the overall automobile industry, which earlier stood at 58 percent, dropped to 53 percent during the year and now stands at 50 percent. This is due to the sharp fall in the price of petrol which has drawn consumers to petrol-engined cars and the downslide of international crude barrel prices to a four-year low. Next year should see the industry diesel-petrol mix at 40:60.

Meanwhile, Maruti Suzuki is pushing its expansion in the overseas markets especially South Africa and Latin America with the total export contribution pegged at 10 percent of the total sales this year. Exports of the Ciaz saloon kicked off last month with about 400 units shipped to Latin America. Overall, the carmaker has sold about 16,000 Ciaz cars since its launch in September 2014. At present, the Ciaz has 27,000 bookings and a waiting period of two months with the diesel variant comprising 58 percent of its total.