Maruti sitting on 100,000 plus pending deliveries as MPV market expands

Maruti Suzuki's popular multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs), Ertiga and XL6 have a combined order backlog of more than 100,000 vehicles, Autocar India (ACI) reported. The delay in deliveries is due to supply chain crises and production-related limitations. Maruti's Ertiga was the best-selling MPV in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23).

Details of the backlog

Maruti Suzuki sold a total of 127,679 and 36,423 units of the Ertiga and XL6, respectively in the financial year that ended on March 31, 2023. The largest car manufacturer in the country has a dominating market share of more than 50 per cent in the MPV segment.

With demand for the MPV segment consistently growing in the country, Maruti Suzuki has faced challenges in clearing its order book. The challenge is more pronounced for the CNG variants of these vehicles.

As of May 2023, Maruti had 68,000 pending orders for the Ertiga CNG alone, the ACI report said. This amounts to 56 per cent of Maruti's overall pending deliveries for CNG vehicles which stand at 121,000.

At present, there is a waiting period of 8-10 months on Ertiga. On the other hand, XL6 deliveries take around 4-5 months to reach customers from the time of booking the vehicle, the report added.

The introduction of the premium MPV Invicto

The Ertiga and XL6 order backlog comes on top of the launch of Maruti's premium MPV, Invicto. The new model will be the company's flagship vehicle expected to be priced above Rs 20 lakh. Known for its budget-oriented offerings, this price bracket is new for the company.

Interestingly, Toyota has a large order book for Innova which has resulted in long waiting periods for its customers. Given this background, it will be interesting to see how many vehicles Toyota allots Maruti to sell.