A backlog of 653,000 units: Carmakers stare at a long road to delivery

Year-on-year dispatches to dealers (counted as sales) declined during most of FY22

Passenger vehicle makers are staring at an order book in excess of 653,000 units — 2x-2.5x the monthly average sales, as they grapple with a mismatch in demand and supply.

Maruti Suzuki India accounts for half the aforementioned backlog. The car-market leader had bookings of 322,000 units as on Saturday, said Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director, Maruti Suzuki. The carmaker expects to clear the current bookings in two and a half months if there is no model or variant-wise constraint. It all depends on how many bookings it receives in the interim period, Srivastava said.

Others, too, have a swelling order book.