Country’s top carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is on a strong wicket. The company, which has been outpacing industry growth for the past six years, is aiming to touch the two million sales by next fiscal.
It achieved total domestic sales of 1.64 million units in 2017-18. For FY19, it has set a double-digit growth, higher than the expected industry growth of 8-9 per cent.
“We hope that the two million mark will be reached in the next financial year and the next goal is three million cars a year by 2025,” said R C Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India. “The contract manufacturing arrangement with Suzuki Motors Gujarat is working very well. The first line is in full production and the second line will be commissioned early in 2019. Work has started on the third line and is expected to be commissioned in early 2020,” he said.
Bhargava also pointed out that India’s car market is unique: 75 per cent of the cars sold are below 4 metres in length and cost under Rs 6.5 lakh at the factory gate.
The Chairman felt that it would be a good intermediate step to expand the use of clean fuel such as CNG. Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director & CEO of the company said: Suzuki Motor Corporation is stepping up R&D efforts especially to provide better technologies and products. The company’s R&D centre at Rohtak plans to proceed to the next stage – Design in India.
The Rs.84,040 crore company spent Rs.125 crore on CSR activities in FY18, which was more than two per cent of the average net profit for the last three financial years.
