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Informist, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026

 

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--CONTEXT: Comments by Maruti Suzuki official at virtual press conference
--Maruti Suzuki: New plants' commissioning helping co boost despatches
--Maruti Suzuki: Have over 200,000 pending bookings right now
--Maruti Suzuki: Logistical hurdles limited export sales growth in Sept
--Maruti Suzuki: Selling 56,000 SUVs per month, just below the mkt leader
--Maruti Suzuki: Don't expect deficit monsoon to impact festival season sales
--Maruti Suzuki: Network stock is around 17 days, remains a challenge
--Maruti Suzuki: Trying to boost supplies of CNG models
--Maruti Suzuki: Don't see meaningful pressure from commodity costs hereon
--Maruti Suzuki: Logistical hurdles may weigh on exports for some more time
--Maruti Suzuki: Will register credits under new fuel emission norms
 

 

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI – Japan, home to Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.'s parent company Suzuki Motor Corp., has become its second biggest export market for the first time, overtaking Saudi Arabia, Rahul Bharti, the company's senior executive officer for corporate affairs, told reporters in a virtual press conference Thursday. Japan had emerged as Maruti Suzuki's third biggest export market in terms of volumes only in 2025-26 (Apr-Mar), but has imported more of its cars this financial year so far, Bharti said.

 

Bharti remains confident that Japan will remain Maruti Suzuki's second biggest export market by the end of FY27 as well. "Interestingly, Suzuki Motor is the largest importer of cars (in Japan) thanks to cars exported by Maruti Suzuki, beating Mercedes-Benz," Bharti said. Maruti Suzuki's models finding traction in Japan include the Jimny, Fronx, and e Vitara.

 

In September, Maruti Suzuki despatched 236,013 vehicles in India and overseas, up 24% on year. Domestic sales stood at 191,794 units, up 30% on year, while exports grew just under 5%.

 

Exports growth has remained slow in recent months due to logistical issues, and the company expects this to continue for some time. For FY27, the company expects to match the export level hit in FY26. Maruti Suzuki is currently India's biggest passenger vehicle exporter. 

 

SUV PUSH

Maruti Suzuki is currently the market leader when it comes to small cars. In the sports utility vehicle segment, it currently sells around 56,000 cars per month – around 5,000 less than the market leader. "Our production team, supply chain teams are trying to further increase the supplies of Brezza, Victoris and we expect to further ramp up our supplies," said Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer of Maruti Suzuki's marketing and sales.

 

The company recently launched a facelift version of the Brezza. Bookings for the model across variants are at around 95,000. The company delivered around 15,000 Brezzas last month. "Production ramp-up is going on in the new plant at Kharkhoda (in Haryana), we are producing it on the new line," Banerjee said.

 

The company expects to ramp this up further during the festival season. The same is expected to happen for another of its SUVs, the Grand Vitara, which the company sells through its Nexa outlets. 

 

COMMODITY COSTS

Maruti Suzuki hiked prices of its cars across the portfolio in September to offset rising input and operating costs. "Commodities is a mixed basket. Some are going up, like copper, etc. But there are other commodities we are going down," Bharti said.

 

The company had shifted from a standard quarterly commodity settlement schedule to a shorter monthly settlement lag after the war broke out between the US and Iran. This was done to alleviate pressure on the vendor network due to surging costs of select commodities. 

 

"We had temporarily compressed the settlement period for aluminium and some commodities with our suppliers, we will take that back very soon," Bharti said. The company does not expect to face any "meaningful" pressure on commodity prices from current levels, Bharti said.

 

Rise in costs prompted a hike in car prices, alongside an increase in fuel prices by the government. Maruti Suzuki has been focusing more on sales of compressed natural gas-run cars to attract more customers. "Our supply chain team is further trying to ramp up the production (of CNG cars) to meet customer demand during festival time," Banerjee said.

 

Currently, 14 of Maruti Suzuki's cars have CNG-compliant models. "We have a backlog across models. We had a mission to grow (penetration of CNG cars in portfolio) to 40%, now we are at 41%," Banerjee said. The company wants to further increase this number.

 

SALES MOMENTUM

Like its peers, Maruti Suzuki expects sales of passenger vehicles to moderate year-on-year, but said the momentum is very much existent. Its pending bookings exceed 200,000 units as of Thursday.

 

"The market is very bullish. Yes, we have got a network stock of only 17 days. That is one thing which is a challenge," Banerjee said, adding that its production team is working to meet the pending bookings. 

 

The company said it has been performing better than the industry across product ranges. Sales of cars attracting a goods and services tax of 18% – smaller cars – in the industry improved 39% on year in Apr-Sept, while the company's sales grew 35%. Sales of sports utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles, which attract GST of 40%, have grown 20% on year across the industry, lower than the company's growth rate of 33%.

 

"We have gained the highest market share among all OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in Q2 (Jul-Sept) as well as in the H1 (Apr-Sept) of this financial year," Banerjee said. Going forward, the company does not expect the deficit monsoon to impact sales during the festival season.

 

For the June quarter, Maruti Suzuki had reported a net profit of INR 33.52 billion on revenue of INR 524.56 billion. Thursday, its shares ended almost 5% lower at INR 11,386 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

Reported by Anand JC and Astha Oriel

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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