Maruti Suzuki sells 144,761 cars in February, up 8.3%

Maruti Suzuki India has entered the last month of FY2022 on a strong note. The passenger vehicle market leader has clocked sales of 144,761 passenger vehicles, which is 8.3% year-on-year growth (February 2020: 133,702).

The entry-level duo of the Alto and S-Presso has clocked numbers of 23,959 units, down 12.99 YoY (February 2020: 27,499), indicating demand is still to rev up in India’s town and country where buyers preferring to go in for used cars.

The six-car pack of the Wagon R, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire sees return to demand. Altogether they have sold 80,517 units, up 15.3% YoY (February 2020: 69,828). February’s performance betters January 2021’s 76,935 units.

What continues to bring a smile to Maruti Suzuki would be its performance in the UV market. The utility vehicle segment, a market which is seeing massive competition as well as a continued wave of demand, sees Maruti Suzuki continue to notch solid growth. The quintet of the Gypsy, Ertiga, S-Cross, Vitara Brezza and XL6 sold 26,884 units, up 19% YoY (February 2020: 22,604), bettering January 2021’s 23,887 units, December 2020’s 25,701 units and November 2020’s 23,753 units.

The premium Ciaz sedan, which has seen slow sales for a long time, sold 1,510 units, down 40% (February 2020: 2,544). In January it had sold 1,347 units, 1,270 units in December 2020, 1,870 units in November, 1,422 in October, 1,534 in September and 1,223 in August.

The two vans – Eeco and Omni – are back in the bacl with 11,891 units, up 5.9% (February 2020: 11,227) .

A look at Maruti Suzuki’s performance in the past 11 months of FY2021 shows that numbers are growing month on month. April to August 2020 numbers are indicative of the Covid-induced loss of sales among lockdowns in the country. Despite the company diving out of diesel a year ago, there is a marked rise in demand for its CNG models which are, remarkably filling the vaccum left by the dropping out of diesel models from the product porfolio.

A busy February
The company has had a busy month, with a number of newsy landmarks. On February 4, its used car division – Maruti True Value – Crossed the 4-million pre-owned car sales milestone.

On February 24, it launched the new Swift at Rs 573,000. The popular hatchback is now powered by a new 90hp, 1.2-litre DualJet petrol engine that’s also used in the Dzire; the current Swift uses an 83hp unit. The unit is paired with either a 5-speed manual or a 5-speed AMT gearbox. Maruti Suzuki claims best-in-class fuel efficiency of 23.20 kilometres per litre in MT and 23.76kpl in AGS variants. The new Swift’s pricing starts at rs 573,000 for the base LXI variant and goes up to Rs 841,000 for the AMT-equipped ZXI+ dual-tone variant.

Three days later, on February 27, the carmaker announced a new milestone – 2 million made-in-India exports.