Hatchbacks are still going strong in rural India for Maruti Suzuki, said Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director, Sales & Marketing. He was speaking to reporters soon after the company reported its highest ever sales of 199,217 units in October.
The rural tally was 38,000 hatchbacks and 14,400 SUVs while the two top selling brands in the month were Swift and WagonR. Between April and October, Maruti sold 221,000 hatchbacks and 81,500 SUVs with rural sales up 11% and 8% in cities.
Despite this, the fact remains that smaller towns and villages still remain an area of concern both for entry-level cars and two wheelers. This has been attributed to the slow recovery in rural India in the aftermath of the pandemic. RC Bhargava, Chairman, had recently said that sustained growth for the automotive industry would only happen when entry-level vehicles were back on track.
This has been borne out by the October sales where Maruti hatchback retails at 95,925 units were 3.4% lower than 98,621 units reported in the same period last year. SUVs grew by 93% to 59,147 units from 30,971 units and account for 50.7% of sales, followed by hatchbacks with 29% and, finally, sedans at 8.1%.
Bhargava had also said that real growth in entry-level cars would happen only with more two-wheeler customers and first-time buyers. According to him, high costs had hit the growth of compact cars but things would look up in two years from now.
Revised Projections
The passenger vehicle has reported retails of 391,472 units in October translating into 16.3% growth, said Srivastava. Between April and October, sales have grown 8.4% YoY to 2.46 million units with Maruti alone reporting a tally of 1.06 million units. This took the company's market share from 41% last year to 43% currently.
Though the industry has seen its ‘best-ever sales’, the growth rate for the second half of this fiscal has been revised from 5-7% to 5.5-6%. The semiconductor crisis has started to ease off and sales have soared.
Srivastava said the picture would become clearer in the first 15 days of November coinciding with Dhanteras and Diwali. Dealers have piled up stocks and if sales are not in line with projections, despatches will naturally drop for the remainder of the fiscal. Maruti, however, is eyeing 10% growth during this period where its SUVs will lead the charge.
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