Maruti Suzuki, India’s no.1 automaker has predicted a sharp fall in sales growth by the end of this fiscal year. Last year, car sales grew by a record 30 percent but this year, circumstances have changed a lot. The increasing inflation and the rising interest rates have had a toll on car sales. Customers were shying away from purchasing new cars over the past few months. Still, the upcoming festive season brings-in a ray of hope for automakers as sales are expected to grow during this period. Maruti Suzuki expects sales growth to grow to 8-10 percent by the end of the year.
Which is sharp drop from last years record sales growth. The mood might have been low for the last couple of months but, with new launches lined up my most car makers in India, there is a sense of excitement among the buyers. The market has also seen a rapid growth in the sales of diesel cars courtesy, the rise in petrol prices which has resulted in running costs of petrol powered cars to shoot-up. Thus, the trend has clearly shifted towards diesel cars and diesel power vehicles will form a big chunk of the total annual sales at the end of the year.
New Maruti Suzuki Swift Hatchback Car
Maruti Suzuki launched the new Swift in India. Even though, Maruti saw a drop in sales for the past few months, the company received record bookings for the Swift and almost 80 percent of those were for the diesel powered Swift. Maruti Suzuki is targetting monthly sales of 17,000 units of the new Swift model across the country by next year. The number, at present stands at 12,000 units per month. This year, Maruti also lost production during the period of the labour unrest that rocked the auto maker.
The company is also involved in exports. But, with another economic downturn apparently on the horizon, exports could drop and we might see annual profits of car makers drop as a result. The year 2010-11 turned out to be the best for the Indian auto sector with record sales growth but, this year the slowdown will take a toll on the growth story. We will have to wait till the end of this fiscal to know the exact extent of the damage. That said, let us hope the situation stabilizes over the coming months.
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