Maruti expect 15% sales growth

The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India, on Monday said, it expects its sales growth to moderate to around 15 per cent this time from nearly 25 per cent last financial year.

“We are looking at 12-15 per cent growth during this financial year, both for the company and the industry,” Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Chairman R C Bhargava told reporters here, on the sidelines of a summit by International Centre for Automotive Technology.

MSI’s total sales soared 24.81 per cent to 12,71,005 units in 2010-11 from 10,18,365 units in the previous financial year. The domestic sales increased by 30.08 per cent to 11,32,739 from 8,70,790 units in 2009-10.

“I don’t think, we will continue at 26-27 per cent growth rate in this financial year. We cannot have such as high growth rate every year,” Bhargava said.

The company had reported its highest ever monthly sales in March at 1,21,952 units compared to 95,123 units in the same month last year, a jump of 28.20 per cent. When asked about the progress made in construction of its second manufacturing unit inside the Manesar facility, Bhargava said: “We are trying to cut short some steps to commission the plant as early as possible. We will try to open it around September this year. It may not be the entire plant, but some portion of it.”

The company had announced an investment of over Rs 3,625 crore to set up two new plants with 2.5 lakh annual capacities each inside the Manesar facility. At present, MSI, which is 54.2 per cent owned by Suzuki, has an annual capacity of 8.5 lakh units at its Gurgaon plant, while Manesar can produce 3.5 lakh units annually, with the overall capacity totaling to 12 lakh units per year. The car maker had said it ramped up production by about 10 per cent to over 1.1 lakh units every month from last October.