Even as Maruti Suzuki is set to run out of stocks of premium hatchback Swift and sedan DZire, bookings continue to pour in for the best-sellers. The company is receiving over 1,000 bookings for both the cars every day. Both the cars are produced at the violence-hit Manesar facility where an indefinite lockout was declared on Saturday.
Mayank Pareek, chief operating officer (marketing & sales), said, “We have about 10,000 units of the Swift and DZire in transit but they are pre-booked. But as we had seen during production disruptions at our Manesar facility last year, demand for both the models continues to be strong. There have been no cancellations, in fact we continue to receive bookings for both the models.”
Pareek declined to specify the number of bookings the company had received for the Swift and the Dzire since the lockout last week.
Company sources who did not want to be identified, however, indicated that on an average 1,000-1,100 bookings are being received for both the models.
A Maruti Suzuki dealer in Delhi-NCR, who did not want to be identified, however, confirmed, “We continue to receive enquiries for both the models. We have told our customers they would have to wait for a minimum of two months from the day production resumes at the factory. We have received around 10 bookings for the diesel variant of the Swift since last week.”
The company already had an order backlog of more than 100,000 units of the two cars. While the demand for DZire stood at 65,000 units, the Swift had 55,000 bookings. “While the LXi and VXi variants of the Swift and DZire are available immediately, customers have to wait for at least three and four months for the top-end diesel variants of the Swift and the DZIre, respectively. There have been no cancellations and bookings continue to come in,” said a south-Delhi based dealer of Maruti Suzuki.
Maruti sold 55,216 Swift between April and June this year, which is an increase of 68 per cent over the corresponding period in the last financial year, while the DZire sales grew by 87 per cent to 46,958 units. The Swift and DZire together register combined sales sells of about 32,000-35,000 units every month and account for over 35 per cent of Maruti Suzuki’s volumes in the domestic market.
Meanwhile, production remained stalled at the company’s Manesar unit for a week now. The unit accounts for 45 per cent of overall production at Maruti Suzuki. Revenue losses for the company have mounted to Rs 450 crore in the period.
