The new year will see a line of hatchbacks (including compact SUVs) hit the Indian roads. Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com offers a peek.
In four days, Sensex has fallen by 5,815.25 points. From the 30-share pack, 22 companies closed the day lower, led by Bajaj Finance, Maruti Suzuki India, Axis Bank, M&M, Tech Mahindra and ONGC, plunging up to 10.24 per cent.
The company saw production hit by 10,200 units till yesterday, which translates into a loss of about Rs 510 crore (Rs 5.1 billion). In the morning, shares of Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) were trading 0.43 per cent down at Rs 1,217.50 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
As the strike at its Manesar plant entered the fifth day on Wednesday, the country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India said there was no question of accepting the demands of the workers.
The country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India on Monday said its Manesar plant has stopped functioning, resulting in a production loss of about 1,200 units so far as a workers' strike entered the third day.
The Maruti Udyog board has approved the purchase of Suzuki Motor Corporation's shares in their joint venture Maruti Suzuki Automobile India Ltd for Rs 12 crore (Rs 120 million) and merge the arm with itself, the Lok Sabha was told on Thursday.
Benchmark BSE Sensex on Tuesday gave up intra-day gains to close lower by a little over 100 points on emergence of fag-end selling in FMCG, banking and IT stocks and weak opening in European stock markets. The 30-share BSE index declined 100.42 points or 0.19 per cent to settle at 53,134.35. During the day, it jumped 631.16 points or 1.18 per cent to 53,865.93.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is neither shifting investments nor jobs from Haryana to Gujarat by shifting production of its compact sedan Dzire, company chairman RC Bhargava said on Tuesday. The company is maximising the efficiency of production at its two plants at Haryana and the parent Suzuki's Gujarat plant, keeping in mind the demand of its multiple models.
Company had posted a net profit of Rs. 656.55 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2009-10 fiscal.
Appellate tribunal NCLAT on Monday stayed the Rs 200 crore penalty imposed by the Competition Commission on Maruti Suzuki but directed the car maker to deposit 10 per cent of the total amount within three weeks. The amount has to be deposited with the Registrar of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). A three-member NCLAT bench stayed the demand notice issued on October 27 to the car maker, subject to the condition of depositing 10 per cent of the penalty amount.
The country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India on Monday reported a 63.6 per cent fall in net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, to Rs 205.6 crore (Rs 2.05 billion).
India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is planning to launch a new version of its small car Alto, the highest selling model in India, with a bigger engine.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) does not anticipate growth in the small car segment because people continue to find these vehicles unaffordable, chairman R C Bhargava said on Wednesday. He said the market had clearly shifted towards the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment and the company will go in the same direction. The domestic sales of utility vehicles jumped in India by 34.54 per cent to about 2 million units in FY23.
The country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India on Tuesday launched a diesel variant of its SX4 sedan at an introductory price of Rs 7.74-8.62 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
Even as banks and finance companies are reporting record-high earnings, their weighting in the benchmark National Stock Exchange Nifty50 Index has seen a downward trajectory. Investors expect a stronger performance from other sectors in the new year. Currently, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) companies collectively hold a weighting of 34.5 per cent, down from 36.7 per cent at the end of December 2022 and a record high of 40.6 per cent at the end of December 2019. This represents the sector's lowest weighting in the index since December 2021 when it stood at 33.7 per cent.
'Two would be premium products and three would be mainstream products.'
Amid better semiconductor chip supplies, the Indian automotive industry posted an 8 percent growth in production of vehicles across categories for the month of May, with three-wheelers (20 per cent) and passenger vehicles (16 per cent) leading the pack. Exports, however, dipped 21 per cent at an industry level. The industry also recorded its highest-ever May wholesales of domestic passenger vehicles (334,802 units), riding on high demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and better supplies of semiconductor chips.
Giving in to rising input cost pressures, the country's largest carmaker by sales, Maruti Suzuki India has increased prices of its vehicles by up to Rs 8,000 across models, except its newly launched compact car Alto K10.
The Jailer song Kaavaalaa, featuring Rajinikanth and Tamannaah Bhatia, has become very popular.
Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava has said that reducing carbon emissions does not require making a choice between hybrid and electric cars, and that both can play key and complementary roles if the government wants to achieve its aggressive emissions target. Responding to the fact that the sales numbers of hybrid cars have been higher than electric cars in the last quarter of 2024, Bhargava pointed out: "It has never been about electric versus hybrid. "Both have a clear role to play. By 2030 we expect electric car penetration to be around 20 per cent.
The company has proposed to launch the 'made-in-India' car in the next three years. Given its nascent engineering strength, the Indian auto co is looking at existing platforms. The company will, therefore, save a fortune by not opting for a completely new car platform. Generally, the cost of developing a new platform constitutes a substantial part of the expenditure incurred on a new car's production.
Automobile sector saw a huge spurt in sales in September as per figures that poured in on Friday.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 465.36 crore (Rs 4.65 billion) for the same quarter last fiscal, Maruti Suzuki India said.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is understood to be planning to ramp up its output by about 10 per cent to produce over 1,10,000 units every month from October.
Car maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Monday reported a 15.75 per cent jump in the total sales in May at 79,872 units as against 69,001 units in the same month last year.
The order, which came on Monday, stated that revenue authorities cannot split the agreement when the parties to the agreement considered the royalty and technical knowhow as a single package.
MSI's exports, however, fell by 13 per cent to 10,554 units.
The Fazer V2 is designed to rival the Honda CB Trigger, TVS Apache 160 and the recently launched Suzuki Gixxer, says Faisal Ali Khan.
It is currently working out the details of the quantum of price increase, which will vary depending on the model.
Automakers Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Kia reported robust growth in their vehicle dispatches in the domestic market for August buoyed by festive demand and easing of semiconductor shortage woes. Other manufacturers like Hyundai, Toyota and Skoda also reported growth in wholesales in August as compared with the same month last year. The country's largest automaker Maruti Suzuki India said its domestic passenger vehicle dispatches increased by 30 per cent to 134,166 units in August as compared with 103,187 units in the year-ago month.
The muted expectation of dealers come at a time when vehicle manufacturers such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor, Mahindra & Mahindra and others reported a double-digit fall in wholesale dispatches to dealerships in July and August.
Sales for the same month last year were at 79,872 units.
In March it reported an increase of 38.85 per cent in sales in the domestic market to 110,424 units from 79,530 units.
The company's Ritz, launched in May, was the first car in India to conform the Bharat Stage-IV emission norms.
Taking exception to an advertisement by Maruti Suzuki India in November last year in one of the newspapers published in Chandigarh, HSCI's notice said a comparison between SX4 and the new Honda City was made, which had 'given completely false figures of the new Honda City in order to show superiority of your product SX4.' The comparison relates to height and length of the new Honda City as well as the 'absence' of integrated stereo systems.
Sales for the same month previous year were at 84,804 units, Maruti Suzuki India said.
"Our sales have been growing since December 2008. December 2008-July 2009 are great months", Maruti Suzuki India chairman R C Bhargava told reporters in Chennai. He hoped that the next two-three months would yield a double digit growth.
The company's overseas sales growth was driven mainly by the export of its flagship model A-Star, which clocked sales of over one lakh units till December 2010, within 11 months of launch.
Suzuki Motorcycle India is planning to open 100 dealer outlets across the country by the end of June this year.
The company has been hit hard, not only by strike of its own workers, but also due to the supply shortage of engines and transmissions from Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd.
