Friday, September 16, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
The situation worsens for Maruti Suzuki
As the situation seems at present, Maruti Suzuki may fail to take benefit from the upcoming festive season in India. Maruti Suzuki India had to stop its production and operations for this week as its most of its workers have gone on a strike. The country's largest automobile company is facing problems since August 29, when its workers at Manesar plant had a standoff with the management, while refusing to sign the Good Conduct Bond. The situation has, since then, persisted. This has severely affected the production of its cars, and thus lead to failure of meeting the demand of buyers.
This is expected to benefit its rival automobile companies in a big way. As per a Honda's spokesperson, the sales of its hatchback Honda Jazz, which was not a big success until recently, have picked up, and now it has a four month waiting period. Jazz's average sales were 200 units per month, which have now gone up to 600 in just 13 days.
The halt of production has caused a fall in Maruti Suzuki's market shares. An expert said that this situation will now take three-four years to become normal. Maruti Suzuki's dealers have already sopped bookings of its highest selling car Swift. Swift's bookings had touched the figure of 100,000. Out of this 80,000 are for the diesel version of the car.
Maruti Suzuki's competitors like Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagon are to be benefitted from this situation. The demand during the festive season will further boost sales of these companies, as Maruti Suzuki would fail to deliver its products to buyers.
