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Passenger vehicle segment expected to touch record sales this fiscal: Maruti
"The economy is doing pretty well better than anywhere else...the automobile sector (passenger vehicles) has now got to a stage this year where it will be close to the levels which we had reached in 2018-19, which are the highest ever," Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) chairman RC Bhargava said on Friday.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) chairman RC Bhargava said on Friday that the passenger vehicle segment in India is expected to touch record sales this fiscal and follow it up in FY24 with an 8 per cent growth. Addressing a virtual presser on MSIL's second-quarter earnings, Bhargava said that several factors including the easing of semiconductor shortage are propelling automobile sales although the sales of small cars are declining, news agency PTI reported.
"The economy is doing pretty well better than anywhere else...the automobile sector (passenger vehicles) has now got to a stage this year where it will be close to the levels which we had reached in 2018-19, which are the highest ever," Bhargava said.
According to the data issued by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), total passenger vehicle sales in 2018-19 stood at more than 33.77 lakh units. During this period, Maruti Suzuki sold nearly 17.3 lakh units. "Although we have also started growing in that segment (SUVs), our growth figures will reach the 2018-19 figure, whereas the industry will have gone a few percentage points above 2018-19," Bhargava said during Friday's presser.
"We expect that next year this trend will continue. The hatchback sector will still continue to show de-growth but (the PV) industry as a whole in the country will have a growth rate, which looking at all the parameters today, could be somewhere around 8 per cent...and Maruti will be more or less around that figure..." the MSIL chairman added.
Concerning the performance of the hatchback segment, Bhargava said the segment found growth in the second quarter. However, he pointed out the growth is limited to this festive season. "I don't expect that hatchback growth to continue, subsequent to this quarter or in the next year," he added, PTI further reported.
Bhargava added that the country's passenger vehicle segment is moving away from the market which was predominantly hatchbacks and small cars to the market which is more in the upper segment.
Although Maruti is gearing up to meet this new trend, Bhargava underlined the automaker is not getting out of the small car segment as it is still a substantial part of the overall passenger vehicle market.
In September, passenger vehicle retails in India increased 10 per cent to 2,60,556 units as against 2,37,502 units in the same month last year, according to the Federation Of Automobile Dealers Associations. Maruti Suzuki led the segment with retails of 1,03,912 units last month.
On Friday, the automaker reported an over four-fold increase in consolidated net profit to ₹2,112.5 crore in the second quarter ending on September 30. In the same period last fiscal, Maruti posted a consolidated net profit of ₹486.9 crore.
(With agency inputs)
