Maruti expects sales momentum to continue; hopes to deliver more cars to customers this festive season

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Maruti Suzuki expects its market to grow faster by riding on the back of strong demand for its models, especially the SUV range, according to a senior company executive. The auto major anticipates the overall passenger vehicle market to grow in the range of 5-7 per cent this fiscal. The PV industry is expected to close the current fiscal at 40.5-41.3 lakh units, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Senior Executive Officer (Marketing and Sales) Shashank Srivastava said. «We have not revised our estimates which we had made at the beginning of the year. We said the industry growth would be in the 5-7 per cent range and our growth should be higher than the industry,» Srivastava said. He noted that in the first quarter, the company grew by 12.2 per cent while the industry grew by around 9.5 per cent.

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Srivastava said that the demand remains fairly robust so far in the fiscal with the April-June period turning out to be the best quarter ever for the industry. «We believe going forward while the volumes may hold because bookings remain strong, the growth may be muted and the reason I say that is because the base effect may be coming into effect now,» he said. He said last year in the second quarter, the sales stood at 10.2 lakh units which was the highest quarter in the history of PVs. «So to have growth significantly higher may be unreasonable to expect,» Srivastava stated.

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When asked about the company's preparation for the upcoming festive season, he noted that with the semiconductor shortage subsiding, the automaker aims to enhance production and bring down the waiting period on models like Ertiga, Brezza