The intense competition and a demand slowdown have failed to challenge Maruti Suzuki’s dominance in the Indian passenger vehicle (PV) space as the top car-maker has seen a decent increase in its market share in 2018-19, a year in which an unexpected fall in volumes hit the industry during the latter part of the period.

Maruti continues to account for a little more than half of the country’s PV volumes. In 2018-19, Maruti’s total domestic PV volumes grew five per cent at 17,29,826 units compared with 16,43,467 units in 2017-18. While the overall growth of the PV industry was about three per cent at 33,77,436 units, Maruti’s growth is slightly higher than the industry growth.

Sales, market share

Maruti’s market share in the PV market grew to 51.2 per cent in 2018-19 from 49.9 per cent a year ago. The increase is the highest among the PV makers in 2018-19 as other car makers such as Tata Motors reported only a marginal increase in their shares.

In Q1 of 2018-19, Maruti’s market share hit 52.5 per cent — the highest in the last four years. However, it fell to 52.3 per cent in Q2 and 51.7 per cent in Q3 of previous fiscal. Q4 also proved to be a challenging quarter.

Against a 7 per cent increase in the PV industry volumes in the first half of 2018-19, PV sales fell marginally (one per cent) during the second half due to muted buyer sentiment Increased penetration of connected mobility (ride sharing) and higher insurance cost are some of the reasons cited for demand slowdown..

Rural market, the saviour

Maruti came out with two new face-lifts of its top-selling models — Ertiga and WagonR — last fiscal. The new variants provided some edge against competition in their segments.

Though urban market sales were poor, the rural segment, which accounts for about 39 per cent of Maruti’s sales, fetched good numbers for the company during the year.

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