Maruti Suzuki Expects Next Year Too to Be a Difficult One

Business Line cited Mr RC Bhargava chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd as saying that Maruti Suzuki expects next year too to be a difficult one. There is still uncertainty in the market with both petrol and diesel cars hard to sell.

Mr Bhargava said that “The next year will also be difficult for the industry, which is expected to show single digit growth.”

He said that last year was not good either. Growth this year would be around 6%.

H added that the company would never manufacture premium cars in India and would focus only on small cars in the coming years.

He said that “We will never go to the premium segment. Neither Maruti nor Suzuki will manufacture such cars. Small cars will remain the largest segment in India and our focus is to be a first class player in this segment as that is our bread and butter.”

Maruti Suzuki sells the Kizashi sedan in the premium segment. On being asked why, he said that it was just to show customers that Suzuki can build something like that. This car is imported as a completely built unit.

According to the company, in India it sold 71 units of Kizashi in November compared with 162 units in the same month previous year. In overall sales, MSIL sold 1,03,200 vehicles in November, up by 12.5% from 91,772 vehicles in November last year.

Therefore, the company said it will launch a refurbished version of the model in near future.

Mr Shinzo Nakanishi MD and CEO of MSIL said that “There is a difficulty to increase the sales for the SX4. Minor change is required as otherwise sales would not go up.”

On the new plant in Gujarat, the company added that it is on track and would start production from 2015-16. MSIL, earlier this year, had announced to invest INR 4,000 crore for the new facility.