Maruti Suzuki's total sales grew by 26.4 percent and came in at 1.65 lakh units as compared to selling 1.3 lakh units in August last year but was lower than what the street was expecting. Total domestic sales grew by 30 percent.
Moreover, sales were lower month on month (MoM) despite the strong order backlog.
While explaining the reason behind the fall, Shashank Srivastava, Senior ED - Marketing and Sales of Maruti Suzuki said, “The number of working days for production in August was less. There were 23 days against the normal 25-26 days. That explains that small drop.”
The company has quite a few pending bookings and it now stands at 377,000. The waiting period is the highest for Ertiga, Brezza, Baleno and Dzire, according to Srivastava.
Maruti is seeing the semiconductor chip shortage situation getting better although "it is not 100 percent okay."
With strong pending bookings and the festive season coming, Maruti, like other auto companies is expecting a pickup in fortunes.
For the full interview, watch the accompanying video
(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)