Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) on Wednesday said there is still a shortage of semiconductors which is impacting the company’s production cycle, especially the utility vehicle (UV) segment where demands continue to pour in.

“For Maruti Suzuki, total bookings (backlog) stands at 3.69 lakh units, of which Grand Vitara has around 37,000 units, Brezza has around 61,500 and the biggest pending numbers is for Ertiga at around 94,000 units,” Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer — Marketing & Sales, MSIL, said in a media briefing.

Long waiting period

The waiting period for Ertiga is around 36 weeks, while that for Brezza and Grand Vitara is up to 25 weeks and 30 weeks, respectively, he said, adding that the company’s market share in SUV has gone up to 18 per cent in February compared with around 11 per cent in the year-ago period.

For models that are yet to be launched — Jimny and Fronx — Srivastava said since the bookings were opened about a month and a half ago, MSIL has already received 22,000 bookings for Jimny and around 12,000 for Fronx. “We plan to commence production of these models by end-March,” he added.

Last month, sales in the UV segment — Brezza, Ertiga, S-Cross and XL6 — clocked 33,550 units (25,360).

Demand impacted

“So far, in this fiscal, we have dispatched 15.08 lakh units, up 23 per cent from 12.27 lakh units in the April-February period of last fiscal... there has been an impact on the demand for new cars, due to an increase in interest rates,” Srivastava said, adding that the chip shortage situation continues to hamper production.

He added that the company produced only 700 units of its only mid-size sedan, Ciaz, last month owing to the chip shortage, and sold 792 units compared with 1,912 units in the same month last year. Ciaz is also seeing tough competition from Skoda Slavia and Volkswagen Virtus, apart from Honda City and Hyundai Verna.

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