Maruti Suzuki on Sunday announced it had registered a total sales of 182,448 units in the month of October. This is a robust growth of 18.9% over the same period of previous year and especially significant because the festive period this time continues well into November unlike in 2019.
The total sales for the month of October included domestic sales of 166,825 units and another 6,037 units to other OEMs. Additionally, 9,586 units were exported in the month.
A bulk of the credit for the solid showing goes once again to the demand for Maruti vehicles in the compact sub segments. The compact segment in particular – which has the likes of WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire and Tour S – saw a year-on-year jump of 26.6% with 95,067 units being sold last month vis-a-vis 75,094 units in October of 2019. The mini sub segment was almost as good as in October of 2019 with a negligible dip of 0.3%. This sub segment has the Alto and S-Presso and it is possible that buyers in this segment may have predominantly looked at the pre-owned category.
The need for personal mobility in Covid-19 times and Maruti’s strong presence in the smaller categories of vehicles may be working in favour of the country’s largest car maker.
Not that Maruti’s utility vehicles are faring bad.
The company sold 25,396 units in the UV segment last month, an uptick of 9.9% as against 23,108 units sold in the same month of 2019. This sub-segment features cars like Ertiga, XL6 and Vitara Brezza. Vans like Omni and Eeco too fared quite well last month.
Sales to other OEMs almost tripled last month with the figure in October of 2019 standing at 2,727 units. Baleno is rebadged as Toyota Glanza while the recently launched Toyota Urban Cruiser is based on Brezza in the Indian market.
Maruti would further take heart from the fact that while the Navratri period has been favourable in terms of sales, the momentum is likely to last for at least the first two weeks of November with Diwali on November 14 this year unlike October 27 last yea
