Maruti Suzuki India Limited, the country's largest car manufacturer, on Wednesday unveiled its luxurious and sporty sedan, Kizashi, at an introductory price of up to Rs 17.5 lakh (Rs 1.75 million).
Despite the benefits of hybrid technology, a lack of government backing and few launches have kept the segment from gaining ground.
The first diesel car from Maruti Suzuki, Celerio diesel is pitted against Hyundai Grand i10, Ford Figo and Chevrolet Beat.
"It has a special place in our product strategy. Millions of Indians own compact cars. With growing incomes and better lifestyle, many of them want to upgrade to a sedan. But on Wednesday, they are not able to find an entry level sedan that offers style, features and performance. The DZire offers all this, and at an attractive price," Maruti Suzuki India Managing Director S Nakanishi said.
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.
Maruti cannot make a Rs 1 lakh car and the company engineers say it cannot be done, Maruti Suzuki India managing director and CEO Shinzo Nakanishi said.
In the next 2-3 years the company will pump in Rs 4,000 cr in product development, R&D and marketing infrastructure.
MD Shinzo Nakanishi also rules out entering ultra low-cost car segment.
The company, which sells every second car in the domestic market, said it expected production and sales to grow between 4 per cent and 8 per cent for the financial year started in April.
Maruti Suzuki's next offering, the A-Star, a premium hatchback car, will be the first vehicle to be exported from the company's car terminal at Mundra Port, which is expected to be operational by December 2008. A joint venture between Maruti Suzuki and Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone (MPSEZ), the terminal is being set up with an investment of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).
While the company used to report bookings of 4,000-5,000 every day, following the partial lifting of lockdown, in a week, it has received around 6,000.
Maruti Suzuki reported a 41.56 per cent jump in sales for August at 84,808 units. Hyundai Motor India reported a 12.92 per cent jump in domestic car sales at 24,401 units.
When the first Maruti 800 was introduced in 1983, it was made of almost entirely imported components; in a few years it had been heavily indigenised - although, for years, the older "original" models commanded a premium on the thriving second-hand market.
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.
Maruti's transformation -- if not descent -- to the 'low road' of labour practices stems from growing competitive pressures in the marketplace since the late 1990s.
A drop in value of the rupee against the dollar and other major currencies may hurt Maruti Suzuki, the country's biggest producer of passenger cars, as it is slated to import as much as Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) of auto parts in this financial year.
Maruti Suzuki India on Tuesday became the first Indian automobile company to produce one million cars in a year.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India on Tuesday said its models Swift, Baleno, WagonR, Alto and Dzire have emerged as best selling cars in 2020-21 and the top five models have come from its stable for the fourth consecutive year. Swift with over 1.72 lakh units was at the number one position followed by Baleno with 1.63 lakh units, the company said in a statement. Maruti Suzuki India's (MSI) tall boy WagonR was in the third spot with 1.60 lakh units while Alto and Dzire were at fourth and fifth with 1.59 lakh units and 1.28 lakh units respectively, it added.
The Mahindra's Scorpio-N becomes the first body-on-frame chassis SUV to secure a five-star Global NCAP rating.
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.
Suzuki Motor Corporation has already said India would be the global small car development hub outside Japan for other markets, he added. MSI's R&D centre is being developed to be at par with SMC's facility in Japan. It will also have crash test centre.
Currency fluctuation has been affecting margins.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday announced raising of excise duty to 12 per cent from 10 per cent at present.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) plans to open new Arena Satellite showrooms as the country's largest carmaker aims to tap small towns and new markets, said a senior company executive, amid signs of recovery in rural demand and an approaching festival season. Senior executive officer for marketing and sales MSIL, Partho Banerjee, told Business Standard the company was aiming to penetrate deeper into markets and reach closer to its customers. "We have already had a concept of mobile showrooms in the Arena channel.
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.
The country's biggest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki India, has raised concerns about the continuing slide in small car sales.
Passenger vehicle retail sales witnessed 3 per cent on-year decline in May with customers delaying purchases in several states due to India-Pakistan conflict and further softening of demand for entry-level models, dealers' body FADA said on Friday. The passenger vehicle registrations last month stood at 302,214 units, as compared to 311,908 units in May 2024.
According to the company, the talks that began on Wednesday morning at 11 am continued through the night and were still going on Thursday morning.
"Out of the total exports, A-Star alone will comprise one lakh units while the rest would be other models," Maruti Suzuki India executive officer (marketing) Mayank Pareek told reporters in New Delhi. The company currently has an inventory level of three weeks and is producing more to meet the upcoming festive demands. On the company's diesel-engine plans, Pareek said it will expand the production capacity to 300,000 units per annum by 2010-11 from the existing 2,40,000 units
The average discounts on the models, especially petrol, were all-time high during the July-September quarter.
In addition to the showroom discounts that ranged from Rs 12,000 on Maruti 800, Rs 11,000 on Alto and Rs 18,000 on Wagon R and Estillo, it offered an additional discount of about Rs 4,000 to such employees. This year, it has stopped financing the scheme. Instead, it has tied up with Axis Bank that offers financing at 10.75 per cent with repayment periods of three to five years (market rates are currently at 14 -15 per cent).
Company had posted a net profit of Rs. 656.55 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2009-10 fiscal.
With induction of these people, the company's workforce will expand by about 27 per cent to nearly 11,000 employees.
India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki plans to ride on the back of new launches in the future to retain its numero uno position in the market place and beat back competition from its peers.
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).
Leading automakers Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors reported decline in wholesales in August as the companies curtailed vehicle dispatches amid drop in demand and to cut inventories at dealer level. Market leader Maruti Suzuki India said its total domestic passenger vehicle wholesales were at 143,075 units last month as compared to 156,114 units in the year-ago month, registering a dip of 8 per cent. Sales of mini segment cars, comprising Alto and S-Presso, declined to 10,648 units last month as against 12,209 units a year ago.
India's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Monday announced a fresh investment of US $1.8 billion to achieve its target of producing one million cars by 2010-11. The bulk of Maruti's fresh investment will be in a research and development facility, for which the company has applied to the Haryana government for 500 acres of land near Manesar.
In a statement issued on Friday, India's largest car manufacturer said that 'due to sharp increase in the input costs and also introduction of BS-IV norms in some models, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd has decided to pass on part of this cost impact to customers.'
Indian passenger vehicles market registered record wholesales of 43 lakh units in 2024, with companies like market leader Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata Motors, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, and Kia posting their best-ever annual domestic sales. The continued growth of SUVs, along with rural markets playing a key role in driving up car sales, helped the industry better the previous best of nearly 41.1 lakh units posted in 2023.
The company has tied up with scrap dealers across India to dispose of old cars exchanged for new cars and is welcoming customers to come with old cars of any make for exchange. The company has started giving offers to customers worth up to Rs 40,000 while purchasing a new car through exchange, while inviting bids from scrap dealers at the same time for the old cars.
