Maruti Suzuki witnesses a downfall of 11.4 per cent

Maruti Suzuki India witnessed a downfall of 11.4 percent as the company sold 86,196 units in April 2014 as compared to 97,302 vehicles in April 2013. The sales of April were even less than March 2014, as the automaker retailed 113,350 units thereby resulting a fall of 24 percent.

The automaker gets a heavy beating in the small car segment (M800, Alto, A-Star, Wagon R) as the company retailed 26,043 units in April ’14 compared to 34,927 units in April 2013- a massive drop of 25.4%. However, the combined sales of Swift, Celerio, Estilio and Ritz have gone up as the automaker sold a total of 23,659 units when compared to 21,535 units in the same time frame. While the sales of Dzire have been affected by Honda Amaze and the recently launched Hyundai Xcent, the automaker observed a fall of 17.7 percent in the same. The company retailed 16008 units of Dzire in April 2014 compared to 19,446 units in the same month last year.

As seen recently, the Indian passenger car sale witnessed a downfall of nearly 5 percent in the last fiscal year and 7 % on yearly basis. The main reason behind the slow growth is high interest rates, degrading value of Indian currency and lack of initiative taken by the government. In order to boost sales, the company offered huge discounts across selected models. The Swit and Swift Dzire were offered with a saving of Rs 50,500 and Rs 43,000 respectively.

Though, the recently launched hatchback Celerio is doing pretty good as it attracted an advance booking of 32,000 units in the initial weeks of its launch. The company for the first time offered a car with an automated manual transmission (AMT) which gives a clutch-less driving experience along with 5 percent more fuel efficiency over manual counterpart. The AMT variant provides fuel economy of 23.1 kmpl (ARAI certified).

The car is getting amazing response from the buyers as its waiting period is already skyrocketed to five to six months. We called a few dealers and they confirmed us that depending upon the color, variant and city you live in, the waiting period can be even as high as seven to eight months. It is also expected that the company will launch Ciaz (a replacement of SX4) around the festive season. Unveiled at the 2014 Delhi Auto Expo, the car got overwhelming appreciation from the visitors.