India's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki reported a downfall of 20.8% in the September sales this year. The company has further reported that car sales figures have reached to 85,565 vehicles, which is inclusive of 6,749 exported units in September. Maruti Suzuki is facing the heat for a long time now, due to the incessant labour strike in its Manesar plant, which in turn, has gravely hampered the production capacity of the company. Models like SX4, Swift and A-Star are manufactured at the Manesar plant in Haryana.
September sales figures of Maruti Suzuki cars have witnessed decrement in all the car segments that it works upon. Car sales of mini passenger cars like Alto, A-Star and Wagon R has registered a downfall of 23.5%, as against September sales of the same cars last year. The company sold only 37,324 mini passenger cars this time, which is considerably lesser in comparison to 48,780 vehicles sold in September last year.
Sales of compact segment cars such as the very popular Swift, Estilo and Ritz in September, has dropped to 19,722 vehicles from 21,749 vehicles in September 2010. The sales of Maruti Suzuki's mid size passenger sedan SX4 has been hit severely, with its sales dropping by 90% in September. Last year, the company sold as much as 1,965 SX4 models at the same time, which has deduced to a meagre 196 vehicles this year. In summation, the company has reported a drop of 17.8% in passenger cars sales during the month of September.
On the bright side however, Maruti Suzuki's utility vehicles like Maruti Suzuki Gypsy and Grand Vitara, received a positive response from the market. Company sales for these vehicles have increased by 54.9%, as reports show sales of 412 utility vehicles in September this year, as against 266 vehicles at the same time last year. But the sales of Maruti Suzuki vans have again decremented in September, bringing the figures back to square one. The September 2011 sales of vans like Maruti Omni and Eeco have decreased to 11,737 vehicles as against 13,822 vehicles sales last year.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited said, while released a statement, “The disruption in production owing to the labour issue at the company's Manesar plant during September adversely impacted the sales numbers during the month.” Experts foresee that the degrading sales situation may get worse in the coming months. Furthermore, there are doubts as to whether the company is ready to cater the customers with the same commitment, it is known for, in the upcoming festive season, when the demand for cars is expected to shoot up.
Amid all the untoward trends, Maruti Suzuki is hopeful that it will soon bounce back from these conditions, with all necessary actions being undertaken in order to improve. Recently, the company reportedly hired around 350 contract workers to bring back the production capacity on track. As a matter of fact, more than 100 workers have signed a good conduct bond with Maruti Suzuki.
Maruti Suzuki officials have been trying their best to resolve the deepening rift between the management and workers. India's largest car manufacturer is aiming to put its vehicle production in top gear in order to meet consumer demand this festive season.
