The Indian auto giant Maruti Suzuki stated on Tuesday that it will stop dispatching cars to dealers during its annual plant maintenance shutdown from December 27 to January 3. The move of stopping supplies to the dealers during this annual maintenance shut down has been taken as the company has left with no stock of cars due to ongoing high demand in the Indian market.
Usually, the company keeps supplying to the dealers during these week-long maintenance shut-downs by keeping inventories for up to 7 days. These shut-downs are done on a half yearly basis (in June and December). But this time around, there will be no supplies to the dealers. Both of company’s Gurgaon and Manesar facilities will be kept closed during this week. As per industry sources, Maruti Suzuki would lose up to 25,000 units of its cars during this week-long shut-down.
As per a statement given by Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Chief General Manager (Marketing) Shashank Srivastava to PTI, "We will have our annual maintenance shutdown from next week. So during this period, one week's production will not be available for dispatches,"
Last month, the company sold a total of 1,12,554 units of its cars, crossing the 1 lakh unit sales mark for the constitutive 6 month of this financial year. In October 2010, Maruti’s total sales stood at 1,18,908 units, accounting for a jump of over 39.21 percent over the same period last year.
At present, the total annual production capacity of MSI is up to 12 lakh unit including 8.5 lakh units at Gurgaon plant and 3.5 lakh units at Manesar. Moreover, the company is investing Rs 1,700 crore for establishing a new plant at its Manesar facility, which will be having a production capacity of 2.5 lakh units per annum.
