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Maruti shines with boom in sales of diesel cars, but its mini car sales drop down

The leading Indian car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki is going through a better phase this year with mount up in sales in the second consecutive month, after declining sales for seven months in 2011. The credit for this impulsive hike goes to the higher demands of diesel variants of Maruti Swift and Maruti Swift Dzire, due to consistently increasing petrol prices.

Sales of Maruti Suzuki have gone up to 1,18,949 units in February this year with a hike of 6.5 percent compared to the sales of same month, last year. There has been an increase of 31.1 percent in demand for the small Maruti cars like Swift, Maruti Estilo and Maruti Ritz. In addition, the sales of Maruti Swift Dzire accounted for 15,068 units with hike of 59 percent.

Last year, the production of Swift was hampered due to labour strikes at Maruti's Manesar facility. Now with the production going in full swing, the sales of Maruti have also shown signs of improvement. The major reason for growth can also be the launch of revamped Swift and Swift Dzire.

The waiting period of Swift Diesel has now extended up to 7 months, however, the Swift Dzire diesel is on the waiting period of 5 – 6 months. Furthermore, the diesel variant of Ritz is also on the waiting period of 1 month. According to the automobile sources, diesel cars sales share 25 percent of the total Maruti Suzuki sales and out of fresh booking, there are around 80 percent bookings of the diesel cars.

However, there has been downfall in the sales of entry-level Maruti cars like the Maruti 800, the Maruti Alto, the Maruti Wagon R and the Maruti A-Star by 8.2% in February this year, compared to the sales of the same month, last year. The major reason for the drop down in sales of these cars can be the launch of rivalry Hyundai Eon and 2012 Tata Nano in the domestic auto-market.

Recently, Maruti Suzuki has signed a pact with Fiat India Automobiles Ltd. to meet the demands of diesel engine cars. As per this agreement, Fiat India would supply up to 1 lakh 1.3 liter diesel engines units per annum to Maruti Suzuki. This agreement would be valid for next three years from the date of agreement.