At present, there is a huge demand from Maruti Suzuki but there are also constraints in the supply line. There are 2.7 lakh pre-booking with the company at present which is almost three times the number during normal course. In a conversation with Zee Business' Swati Khandelwal, Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Sales and Marketing, Maruti Suzuki, speaks about the demand-supply issue.

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He also spoke about the recently launched new-age Baleno, the company's expectations from the upcoming fiscal year and its stride towards electric vehicle (EV).

Reason behind the long waiting periods

While addressing this issue, Srivastava said, "The problem with the waiting periods emerged as the bounce back was fast after the COVID-19 period. The people preferred personal mobility instead of shared and public transport. At the same time, the problem with the supply of semi-conductor has been persistent. However, we are expecting that this problem with the supply of semi-conductor will come to an end very soon."

 

He also added that the company will increase the production when there is full supply of semi-conductors. Moreover, the situation in the supply of semi-conductors has increased over the months.

New-age Baleno

Maruti Suzuki's Baleno is one of the top five selling cars in India. The largest carmaker in the country has launched Baleno in a new avatar.
The new-age have added certain features about which the company came to know from customer feedback. The market share of the company in the premium hatchback segment is expected to increase with this new-age Baleno.

Expectations from FY23

"We are quite optimistic for FY23. If we currently observe the situation, there is a good flow of bookings. The demand will be good and it is expected that the range will be between $3.36 million to $3.53 million," Srivastava informed. The expected growth will be around 10 to 12 per cent.

Maruti Suzuki's EV by 2025?

Maruti Suzuki will launch its electric vehicle (EV) before 2025. On this issue, the Executive Director of Sales and Marketing said, "There is a consensus in the industry in general that a time will come when the adoption of EV will be done very fast. That point of inflection will come in future."

He also pointed out that several other elements including charging infrastructure, battery infrastructure, cost of battery and others have to be considered before the launch of EV. "Going by the reports, it seems that there will be a point of inflection by 2027-28 and at that time EVs will be 10 per cent of passenger vehicles," Srivastava added.