Maruti Suzuki capped off what has otherwise been a tumultuous 2020 for the automotive industry at large with a solid 20.2% year-on-year growth in December. The company sold a total of 160,226 units in the month, continuing with the recovery process and perhaps benefiting from the continued preference towards personal mobility options in Covid-19 times.
Maruti has a large profile of small and affordable cars in the Indian market which was always going to play to its advantage. Post lockdown months, the company has been reporting a quick recovery and in December, sold a total of 146,480 units in the domestic market and another 3,808 units to other OEMs. As many as 9,938 units were exported in the month which, significantly, is over 2,000 units more than what it had exported in the same month in 2019.
Vehicles in the compact sub-segment like WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno – among others – remain the main driving force and saw a 18.2% year-on-year growth. The mini sub-segment – Alto and S-Presso – also fared well with an uptick of 4.4%. Cars in Maruti’s UV sub-segment – Ertiga, XL6, S-Cross, among others, also fared well with 25,701 units sold last month vis-a-vis 23,808 units in December of 2019 (8% uptick).
Much like previous months gone by, the sedan sub-segment remains the only concern with Ciaz finding fewer takers.
Overall though, it has been a surge post standstill with the country’s largest car maker reporting a growth of 13.4% in Q3, when compared to the same period in the previous year.
