The month of June witnessed a drop in the vehicle production by Maruti Suzuki India making it the fifth consecutive month the company is resorting to cut in production. The declining trend in the sales of automobiles, particularly in the passenger car category has led to the vehicle manufacturers cutting down on their production.
The absolute numbers and the figures for the different car models have been submitted by Maruti Suzuki India in its statutory filings. According to this, the number of overall vehicles manufactured in the passenger cars category stood at 1,09,641 as against 1,31,068, in June last year, which represents a 16.34% reduction Y-o-Y.
The largest gap is in the entry level segment, led by the small car Alto. There were 29,131 cars in this segment, made last year, while this June it got cut to just 15,087, a steep 48.2%.
Maruti’s strength appears to be its mid-segment offerings, comprising the Swift, Wagon R and DZire models since the cut in production of cars in these models was only 1.46%, 66,436 against 67,426 made in June last year.
The utility vehicle segment, which is generally considered the segment recording some growth in the past few years also witnessed a production cut of around 5.26%. In the other category termed as vans, the drop level was significant at 27.87%.
The production of vehicles by Maruti Suzuki India in 2019 has seen a regular cut from the number of cars produced in the same months last year. The percentages have been 8% in February, 20.9% in March, 10% in April and 18% in May before resorting to a 16.34% cut in production in June.
It has also to be kept in view that these are figures of vehicles shipped out of the factory gates of the manufacturers to their various dealer points in the country and not the number of vehicles sold to the customers in the retail market.
Similar trends have been witnessed with the other major players in the country in the automotive manufacturing sector as well.
The month of May has reportedly seen one of the worst drops in the sales of vehicles in the past 18-20 years in terms of the percentage drop. The absolute figures may tell a different story. As mentioned, the loss of sales at the retail level in May this year was just 1%.