The Hindu Business Line : Maruti's road to fame

It is by now clichéd to talk about Maruti Udyog's contribution to the motorisation of India. And yet it is inevitable that a bit of nostalgia creeps in every time a major milestone comes by for the company.

Maruti has had a chequered past and during its nearly 24 years of staying on top of the Indian automobile industry, it has also had its fair share of controversies.

Next week will officially mark another key page in Maruti's diary. Senior company officials, including Mr Osamu Suzuki, Chairman and CEO, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Mr Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director of MUL, and Mr S. Nakanishi, Chairman, MUL, will officially inaugurate two new plants of the company.

One of the facilities to be inaugurated is the company's fourth assembly plant and the other is the diesel engine manufacturing plant. The new plants will enable Maruti to launch at least three new models in the next two years and help it make bigger inroads into the diesel passenger car market.

With an investment of Rs 2,500 crore, the fourth car assembly plant is rated among the best Suzuki plants worldwide. The plant is said to be future ready and is designed to produce world-class vehicles. It has started with a capacity of one-lakh cars per annum, which would be scaled up to three lakh cars by 2010. Maruti also expects to begin export of about two lakh cars per year from this assembly plant.

Maruti and Suzuki's first diesel plant is designed to produce state-of-the-art diesel engines and transmission systems. This plant would also entail a total investment of Rs 2,500 crore. Besides serving the Indian market, it will also be an export base for Suzuki's operations worldwide. This plant will have a capacity of one-lakh engines per annum to be expanded to three lakh units by 2010.

On the eve of the inauguration of the two plants, here are a few of the lesser-known facts and figures about the Indian passenger car market leader that we complied:

In December 1983, when Maruti came into being, the Indian car industry had stagnated at an annual sales volume of 40,000 cars.

MUL manufactured 852 units of the Maruti 800, its first and only car during 1983-84, the year of the first plant's inauguration. Later in 1986-87 Maruti sold 82,206 units in the domestic market and exported 102 units.

During 1994-95, Maruti sold over 1.85 lakh cars in the domestic market and the total market then was just a little over 2.1 lakh units.

In comparison, in 2005-06 MUL sold 5,27,038 units in the domestic market and exported 34,782 cars. The total market size during the year was 11.4 lakh units for cars and utility vehicles.

For a company as mature as MUL, it witnessed an unprecedented improvement in productivity of 46 per cent during the last three years. In a factory with an installed capacity of 3.5 lakh units, the company manufactured close to six lakh units in 2005-06.

MUL is ranked at 91in the Forbes' list of the World's Most Respected Companies.

Maruti Udyog is Suzuki's biggest operation outside Japan.

Suzuki Motor Corporation sold 6.95 lakh cars in the domestic market (Japan) and exported 3.7 lakh units during calendar year 2006. Maruti Udyog, on the other hand, sold 5.96 lakh cars in the domestic market (India) and exported 33,207 units during the same year. Will the subsidiary beat the parent soon?

S. Muralidhar

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