The strike at Maruti Suzuki India manufacturing plant turns out to be a boon to its closest rivals in the car market including Tata Motors. Tata Motors is said to double its production capacity at its Pune plant to fill the gap created by the decreasing demand for Maruti models due to their extended waiting periods. Tata Motors, with its strong diesel vehicle line-up is converting the lack of Maruti India’s diesel car supply to its advantage. The year 2011 had been rather slow for MSI as the employees had twice called the strike, once back in June for a period of 13 days and for the second time in August that ended on October 1st. The production of its best-selling models including Maruti Swift, Maruti SX4 and Maruti Swift Dzire had been drastically hit due to the continuous strikes at the plant.
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Tata Motors has apparently boosted its production from 300 units to 700 units a month. However, Tata Motors spokesperson Debasis Ray has denied to connect the raise in production with the MSI workers’ strike. He specified the revving up is to meet the increasing demand for its cars especially after the launch of the new Tata Vista Indica and other models. The recent launches by its rivals like new Maruti Swift and Honda Brio have accounted for a steady decline in Tata Motors sales. According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Tata Motors cumulative sales till September have fallen by 13.35% to 150,748 units from last year. As a part of increasing its sales, Tata Motors had held a marketing campaign for its new Tata Indica by listing out the advantages, the small car has over the new Maruti Swift. The new Tata Indica variant now has a waiting period of around 2-3 months.
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While there are other car manufacturers who are benefiting from the notorious MSI’s workers’ strike like GM’s Chevrolet Beat for example, Balendran, VP of General Motors clarifies that the domestic car market is observing an increased demand for diesel cars as it is. He mentions that irrespective of MSI strike, soaring demand for diesel cars is recorded in the country. Apparently, GM sold around 10000 units of Chevrolet Beat diesel since its launch contributing to half of GM’s total sales.
