Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki expects the industry growth to moderate to single digit in the next financial year due to a high base.
Another factor that could lead to the growth moderation is the pass through of interest rate increases so far that reflect with a lag in auto loan rates.
"There is a partly the pass through of repo rate increases which we saw in the past of around 250 basis point hasn't yet been built for the in the auto retail loan rates. Around 130 basis points have been carried forward. And I think 120 basis points, we can expect further increase," he noted.
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.
Read excerpts of the interview below.
Q: As we come to the end of this fiscal how do you expect the industry to grow over FY23 and how do you expect Maruti Suzuki’s performance? If you could give us a percentage in terms of growth that you are expecting?
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.
Q: So could you just give us the industry growth once again, and what do you expect Maruti Suzuki’s growth to be like?
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.
Q: Let me ask you about the consumer sentiment on the ground, especially when it comes to entry level vehicles. Does the sentiment on ground continue to be muted? Are you seeing a drop in sales of entry level segments?
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.
Q: What has been the drop like in terms of the percentage of sales of entry level vehicles in your entire portfolio?
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.
(Edited by : Shweta Mungre)
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