Festive season to deepen supply problems for car makers

The festival season in India is around the corner and the car makers are yet to come-out with something constructive to cope-up with the short-fall of the inventory in the manufacturing of their cars in the Indian market. In India, the demand for vehicles traditionally surges in the festive season and car-makers generally launch a series of new schemes in this period so that they can make the most of the high demand of that period. But this time, the car makers seem to be facing a big problem in meeting-up with the high demand of festive season as most of them are lagging behind in meeting the current demand for cars in India.

This year, the high sales attraction Navratri period will fall in the first week of October. The Navratri period is typically one of the most sales obtaining period of the year and car makers generally start building-up the inventory for the season two months before it arrives. But this time, the situation seems to be quite different as the supply of the parts have been bottle-necked due to the production constraints at many of the OEMs (original equipment makers).

Country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) is among one of the most affected by this supply shortfall. The waiting period for some of the most popular Maruti cars in the Indian market like hatchback Maruti Swift and starting range sedan Maruti Swift Dzire, is reaching up to as much as 3 months. However, the company is working very hard to catch-up with this rising demand. It has decided to set-up four vehicle stock yards in the country so that a higher number of cars can be stored and delivery period for cars can be lowered down.

Besides Maruti cars, other cars which have been affected the most by ongoing supply shortage include Toyota Fortuner, Volkswagen Polo and Ford Figo.