Maruti’s closest competitor and the second country's largest player Hyundai reported a 9.1% growth in domestic sales in February, with sales of 40,716 units. “Hyundai domestic sales grew on the strength of strong performance of the three brands- Creta, Elite i20 and Grand- in spite of logistic challenges for transportation of vehicles to North India and loss of many business days of dealership operations across Haryana,” said Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president (sales and marketing) at Hyundai.
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Last month, the agitation in Haryana demanding backward caste status for the Jat community disrupted component supplies to Maruti, causing a temporary suspension of production for two days. The total production loss was over 10,000 units. Maruti Suzuki has the capacity to produce 5,000 vehicles daily across its two plants in Haryana. Even though it resumed production after two days, it could not operate at full capacity for a day or two as certain component makers took time to resume normal supplies.
In spite of the slippage, it managed to achieve marginal growth in domestic sales, the company said in a statement.
Maruti Suzuki’s stock price which hit a 14 month low of Rs 3,202 on Monday, was up 4.68% to Rs 3,394 on the Bombay Stock Exchange at 11.15 a.m.
The production loss seems to have impacted the mini segment most, where sales of the Alto and WagonR dropped by a sharp 11.2% to 35,495 units in February. The sale of compact segment (Swift, Ritz, Dzire, Celerio and Baleno) was flat. In the April-February period of the financial year, the company’s domestic sales growth is still at a double digit number of 11.2%, indicating it will close the year with double digit growth figures.
The flat sales numbers from Maruti Suzuki, which has a 46% share of the domestic passenger vehicle market, will also impact the industry’s sales numbers for February.