Long wait period worries Maruti

Concerned over the long waiting period for the company’s new models, Maruti Suzuki India chairman R.C. Bhargava on Thursday said it is “not good for the future” of the market leader and efforts are being made to address the issue.

Baleno and Vitara Brezza have had response far in excess of the company’s expectations. The result has been waiting periods of 6-7 months, Mr Bhargava said at the company’s annual general meeting.

“Everybody in the company recognises that this is not a happy situation and causes not only considerable customer inconvenience but is not good for the future of the company, to continue to operate in a manner where a product remains short of supplies,” he said.

Assuring the shareholders that MSI is taking steps to address the concern, he said: “We have to make every possible effort during the year to improve this situation and see that we correct the factors which led to our underestimating demand so this kind of serious mismatch of production and demand does not happen in future.”

As part of the measures to reduce the long waiting period and also keeping in mind the company’s sales target of two million units annually by 2020, the functioning of parent Suzuki's Gujarat plant has been advanced and it will start rolling out Baleno from early next year. “The initiatives taken under Ayukawa san (MSI MD and CEO) have convinced me that this target (2 million sales by 2020) is achievable.

“For this expansion of production is required and the Gujarat project is on schedule and we expect cars from first line would be available for sale in February 2017,” Mr Bhargava said.

At the same time the work is going on to start the second line and the company is discussing what further steps need to be taken to augment production going forward, he added.

The Gujarat plant was earlier supposed to start production in May-June 2017.

“Our approach will be to ensure that production in future matches market demand,” he said.