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Maruti Suzuki India Ltd appears to have benefited significantly from the pent-up demand in the passenger vehicle (PV) market as the country’s top carmaker managed to grab a retail market share of more than 50 per cent in October.
The company expects retail sales in November also to be equally good due to the Diwali festival. Based on the current booking and retail sales trend, the company sees good demand visibility till January 2021.
In the previous 2-3 months, Maruti’s retail share was 49 per cent. In October, Maruti witnessed highest-ever wholesales for Swift (24,589), WagonR (18703), Eeco (13,309) and Baleno (21,971), while retail sales for Eeco (16,053) and Ertiga (12,451) were the highest-ever.
“Total retail sales in the PV market were estimated at 370,000 units this October and the wholesale number was about 334,000, which was better than the previous highest number of 310,000 units in September 2017. Though it was a surprise retail demand, October was a good solid month for the industry as a whole and Maruti garnered a retail market share of 51.1 per cent,” Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director (Marketing & Sales), Maruti Suzuki India, told BusinessLine.
Personal mobility
He attributed a few reasons for the strong sales of Maruti in October. Maruti benefited from people’s shift to personal mobility from shared mobility. As most preferred buying hatchbacks and smaller sedans, Maruti appeared to have gained.
“During turbulent times, people prefer the well-known and reliable brand and that was positive for Maruti. Also, with a shift from diesel to petrol models on the back of fuel price convergence between diesel and petrol, Maruti benefited due to its strong petrol model line-up,” said Srivastava.
Meanwhile, rural markets continued to bring more volumes for Maruti and its contribution has grown to 40 per cent plus of total sales from 38.5 per cent earlier.
However, the overall contribution of rural markets to total PV industry sales fell to 34 per cent in the September 2020 quarter from 36 per cent in June 2020 quarter due to increase in Covid-19 cases in rural areas in the recent months. In FY20, the rural markets’ share was 32 per cent of total PV industry sales, according to Crisil estimates.
While Maruti expects good demand till January, constraints on the production side will have to be looked at. Post-January, there is a bit of uncertainty over demand. Also, long-term demand for automobile is a function of economic parameters. The correlation between per capita income growth and auto sales is extremely high. Also, car buying is a discretionary purchase and it requires some positive sentiments. “We don’t know which way the Covid cases will move and how they would alter the sentiments and the economic growth,” Srivastava said.
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