As the slowdown in the automotive sector in India continues, Maruti Suzuki India has continued to reduce the number of cars its plants produced in the month of September. This is the eighth month in succession that the company is reporting reduced production of cars. In percentage terms, the drop is 17.4%, 1,30,264 units across all models as opposed to 1,57,659 in September of 2018.
The reduction in the number of cars made in different models across segments too, has been uniform. Models like Alto, WagonR, Celerio, Ignis, Swift, Baleno and Dzire, which together form the mini and compact segments witnessed a reduction of 14.9%, from 1,15,576 cars last year to 98,337 this year.
The company makes three models Vitara Brezza, Ertiga and S-Cross in the utility segment and the output figures for these stood at 18,435 (22,226 last year), while just 2,350 were made of the sedan model Ciaz down from 4,739 last year.
This 17.4% cut in September comes after a 33.9% cut in August.
It’s not just Maruti that is cutting production. Tata Motors Ltd says it cut its passenger vehicles production by 63% in September. There was a steep fall from 18,855 units in September 2018 to 6,976 units in September 2019.
The others, Hyundai Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Toyota Kirloskar and Honda Cars India have all reported reduced production figures for the last month as compared to a year ago. This comes right at the time the festival season has commenced. It appears the demand side of the economy is yet to pick up momentum and the government does not appear to have any readymade fixes to the issue either.