Maruti Suzuki looks to cash in on 'few lakh marriages' in November to carry festive sales momentum

With a record October month behind, the country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is banking on a "few lakhs marriages" slated for November to carry forward the festive sales momentum, according to a senior company official.

The company clocked retail sales of 2,02,402 units last month, which is its highest for any October month on the back of festive sales, breaking the previous record of 1,91,476 units posted in October 2020.

"We are made to understand that some 'few lakhs' marriages are being planned across the country (in November). So we are pretty hopeful that it will also give us good traction in terms of our retail sales," Maruti Suzuki India Ltd Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales, Partho Banerjee told PTI.

He was responding to a query on whether the company would be able to carry on the momentum of festive season sales for the next few months. "We have to see actually but we feel there are a good number of marriages this time in the month of November.

The number of days for marriages, they are almost all-time high of some 11 or 12 days… “We are hopeful that in November, since so many marriages are there, the momentum will carry and that's what we are looking forward to," Banerjee said.

With the festive season giving a much-needed boost to sales, Maruti Suzuki India is confident of staying on track with the forecast of 4-5 per cent growth for the ongoing fiscal.

"In terms of retail sales in the April to October period, we have a growth of almost 4 per cent cumulatively. In October we had a growth of 22.4 per cent...At the beginning of the year, it was projected that this year the growth will be around 4 per cent to 5 per cent.

I think it will be in line with that," Banerjee said when asked for the outlook for the rest of the fiscal. Subsequently to the good retail sales in October, he said the company has been able to trim inventory in its sales network.

"We have corrected our network stock by more than 40,000 units. We calibrated our production supplies, and now our network stock is almost one month. We have been able to bring network stock to 30 days," Banerjee said.

On discounts, he said these vary from region to region and market to market and the company has moved away from deciding it from the headquarters. "What we have done is that we have made it very market-specific.

Now we are not controlling it from the head office. We have allowed our field team to take the calls based on the market needs as each market behaves in a different way.  We need to respect the customer's viewpoint, and accordingly, we need to act actually," he added.

When asked if the company is planning a price hike in January as the year-end approaches, Banerjee said, "Our finance team is examining that and it is too early for me to give a comment.