The ‘Big Car Churning’ machine has finally hit the brakes. Maruti Suzuki, after 2 years of dominating growth, has experienced a decline in sales because of labor strike that hit the company in June. Maruti last showed a drop in sales in December 2008.
The ‘Small Car’ czar had to stop production for 11 days as 2,000 workers at the Manesar went on strike because their demands of recognizing them as a new union was not met. Maruti Suzuki suffered a loss of 93 million dollars and 12,500 units of different models were not produced at all.
Initially, when the strike began, the company said that it had enough inventories to factor in the strike but later Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava announced that there will be ‘a considerable delay’ on all the diesel models. The launch of the new Swift was also delayed because of the same strike.
Adding to the misery, the company had to shut its plant for the next 6 days for annual maintenance of the machinery. That’s a total of 16 days of no production at all!
Further, the passenger car segment also showed signs of a slowdown with only 17% growth as opposed to 31% last year in the same period. So a ‘triple shock’ meant even the biggest automaker had to drop its weapons. Although, this decline will be temporary one as production has resumed in full swing. Maruti will bring the new Swift, new Dzire and R3 MPV to the market next.
Earlier there was a saying, ‘If you are buying your first car, better buy a Maruti’. This was the primary reason why Maruti’s legendary entry level hatches (800 and Alto) have always dominated the sales come what may. With the Indian automotive market currently being driven by first time buyers, these hatchbacks are being sold in massive numbers. The Alto even became the chart topper across the world. But MSIL [ Read More ]
The largest auto manufacturer in India – Maruti Suzuki India which was also the first manufacturer to sell a Million cars in a year managed to achieve the same growth in just 10 month! This means Maruti sold one lakh cars every month from April-December. A senior Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) official said – As on January 25, domestic wholesale is at 73,874 units, while the export figures will [ Read More ]
Maruti Suzuki is losing its market share in India steadily and for the first time in 25 years, Maruti Suzuki’s market share has dropped below the 50% mark. Currently Maruti Suzuki’s market share stands at 47%. Maruti has lost 6% of the market share as compared to lat year.
Maruti Suzuki has been the market leader in the Indian car scene for ages and a 47% market share is in no way ignorable but is the drop in the market share the result of new competitive players like Ford and GM offering better products and from now could Maruti’s share steadily decline?
The Ford Figo and Chevrolet Beat with faster delivery times are considerably eating into Maruti’s small car sales and the Nissan Micra, Toyota Etios and the Honda NSC small car would soon join the assault party.
Maruti’s bestseller Alto would also be challenged soon with Hyundai, GM India and Nissan planning to take on the Alto soon. The Alto would also face stiff competition from Ford and Peugeot who could also enter the Alto’s segment in the future. The Tata Dolphin if launched could kill the Maruti Alto.
With strong threats from so many manufacturers would Maruti be able to hold its fort?
Cars that has threatened Maruti -
> Ford Figo
> Tata Nano
> Chevrolet Beat
Future cars Maturi should lookout for -
> Tata Dolphin
> Hyundai H800 small car
> Nissan small car with Ashok Leyland JV
> GM-SAIC small car
> Toyota Etios
> Ford B156 small car
Click through to read more
Maruti Suzuki Sales New Delhi, November 1, 2008 Car market leader Maruti Suzuki India Limited sold 64,490 vehicles in the in October 2008. This includes 5,363 units of exports. The company had sold 69,415 vehicles in the domestic market in October 2007. Maruti¿s volume in the domestic A3 segment went up by 29.6 per cent. The sales figures for October 2008 are given below: Segment Models October Till October April’07 [ Read More ]
The ‘Small Car’ czar had to stop production for 11 days as 2,000 workers at the Manesar went on strike because their demands of recognizing them as a new union was not met. Maruti Suzuki suffered a loss of 93 million dollars and 12,500 units of different models were not produced at all.
