Gaining volumes from a strong festive season sales, Maruti Suzuki has managed to record a growth in production numbers in the month of November, after cutting down volumes for eight months straight in a row. India’s largest carmaker manufactured 141,834 units in November 2019 as compared to 135,946 units it manufactured in the same month last year, posting a year on year (YoY) growth of 4.33 percent. The company had cut its production by 20.70 percent at 119,337 units in October 2019 as compared to 150,497 in the same month last year.
To cash in the festive season demand, the carmaker had rolled out some attractive discounts and benefits of up to ₹ 1.5 lakh on its highly popular models like the Vitara Brezza and Swift which helped the company to pull off decent sales amidst the slowdown in the auto industry. Both the compact and utility vehicle (UV) segments have recorded double-digit production growth, after the revival in sales.
The compact segment which includes models like the Swift, Dzire, new Wagon R, Baleno, Celerio, Ignis, and the Baleno dubbed Glanza that is supplied to Toyota grew at 18.83 percent at 78,133 units as compared to 65,754 units which were manufactured a year ago. The UV segment which has models like the Vitara Brezza, S-Cross, Ertiga and XL6 was up by 18 percent at 27,187 units as against 23,038 units which rolled off the assembly line in the same month a year ago.
The mid-size sedan, Ciaz also recorded an uptick of 25 percent in production at 1830 units as compared to 1460 units which were manufactured in the same month a year. That said, the Mini segment and Vans segment witnessed a slump of 20 percent at 24,052 units (30,129 in November 2018) and 42.76 percent at 7882 units (13,768 units in November 2018), respectively. The total production of passenger vehicles grew by 3.67 percent at 139,084 units as compared to 134,149 units in the same month last year. The production of its only commercial vehicle, the Super Carry went up by 53.03 percent at 2750 units as compared to 1797 units in the same month a year ago.
Maruti Suzuki had witnessed a YoY sales growth of 4.5 percent in October 2019 at 153,435 units as compared to the 146,766 units sold during the same month last year and that has reflected in its November production numbers as the company tends to maintain its inventory level. That said, in November, the domestic sales again dropped by 3.2 percent at 141,400 units last as compared to 146,018 units in the same month last year. This leaves us wondering about how the decline in November sales will reflect on its December production numbers.