Maruti Suzuki expects industry growth to moderate next year

However, Maruti Suzuki expects to grow faster than the industry average in the current financial year.

“We have already gained some market share, thanks to our newly launched SUVs. But I think by the end of March, you will see that our growth much faster than the industry” he said.

Maruti Suzuki is now India’s 19th listed company to cross ₹4 lakh crore in market capitalisation as the company’s shares surged 23% in 2024.

Maruti sold over 1.63 lakh vehicles in the domestic market in February and total production was 1.78 lakh units.

Maruti plans to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) in the Indian and global markets in the next year, further diversifying its product offerings and capitalising on emerging trends in the automotive industry.

A: So for the industry, it has been a very good year. Expected overall sales in the entire fiscal year 23-24 should be around the 42.3 lakh units. This compares favourably with 38.9 lakhs that we saw last year, that's a growth of almost 8.8%. From Maruti Suzuki, of course, we expect that our growth will be higher than this growth. In other words, we will gain market share by the end of this fiscal. We have already gained some market share, thanks to our newly launched SUVs. But I think by the end of March, you will see that our growth is much faster than the industry.

A: 8.8% I said would be the industry growth. And Maruti growth would be higher than this. I can't really give you the exact number, it could be market moving so we will definitely grow much faster than the industry.

A: Yes, so for the entry level segment, the sales still remains muted. Remember just about in 2019-20, the small cars, the hatchs just contributed about 45-46% of overall sales of passenger vehicles that fell to almost 30% last year. Currently this year, it's around 28%. So yes, we have seen that continuous decline largely because of the affordability factor coming down. We do expect that in a couple of years in fact, 2026 second half that we see a rebound there. But you are right, we do see on the ground, the sentiments for smaller hatches continue to be muted.

A: So if you look at the overall de-growth in the industry for small cars - hatchs it is about 12% negative this year so far as and it is 6% negative for sedans. It's a plus for SUVs almost 26% plus for SUVs, for MPVs it is plus 16% and about plus 5% for the vans. Overall as I said expected about plus 8.8%. So largely the growth has been driven by the B segment vehicles, the SUV and the MPVs as you can see from this data.

Q: Speaking to you about the utility vehicles, some of the utility vehicles in Maruti’s portfolio have not been performing very well, especially if you look at Jimny. Could you give us the numbers for the Jimny in January and February?

A: Just short of 1,000 numbers that was the wholesale number, separately. I don't remember the exact number, I think it was 700 in January and about 600 something in in February. But the retails are better and if you see for example, in December, we had a higher stock of Jimny’s and thanks to our strong sales promotion scheme, the retails on the month of December was about 4,500 Jimnys. So after which of course, we are now producing vehciles exactly as per the requirement.

I think once we see this stock coming down, it has already come down quite a bit and then we will see a much better number for the Jimny. So far the Jimny, it was launched in June, we have sold about 18,000 vehicles in nine months, nine and a half months. So roughly about 1,900 a month has been the average for Jimmy so far.