Maruti Suzuki seems to be getting back on track in 2012 after being hit by a strike at its Manesar plant, which affected production intermittently over five months.
The top three car brands by sales in the country are now from the Maruti stable. While the Alto (F800 and K10 models) has been able to maintain its leadership, the new Swift has displaced Maruti's Wagon R for the runners-up spot, a first for a premium hatch. Moving to the third position, the Wagon R has pushed the Hyundai i10 southwards.
“Though market has shown a growth for diesel cars and decline for petrol, the Alto has remained a leader by far. But the absence of a diesel version has hurt Wagon R,” said Mr Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager of Marketing at Maruti.
Market watchers said Hyundai's i10 sales have suffered both because of the unavailability of a diesel variant and because some of the demand has shifted to the Korean carmaker's own recent offering — the cheaper Eon.
Maruti now expects another blockbuster performance from the Swift Dzire compact sedan, expecting it to become the fifth bestseller in the country (after the Tata Indica) as the count for 2011-12 fiscal closes this month. The Dzire had always been in demand, especially its diesel twin. With a totally new model launched in early-February, sales went up 59 per cent (15,068 units) in a single month.
Maruti's rapidly rising market share is thanks to the success of the Swift range. With production slowly coming back on track from November 2011 and a second new 2.5-lakh-units-a-year assembly line at Manesar ramping up from January, February saw Maruti capturing around 40 per cent of the market. This is after its market share had seen a steep drop to 28 per cent in October 2011 from a 45 per cent share in 2010-11.
Maruti Suzuki's shares on the BSE were down 0.56 per cent at Rs 1,312 on Monday.
roudra.b@thehindu.co.in