Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. has proposed to treble the production capacity of AMT (automatic manual transmission) units in view of the growing demand for such cars in the country.
“As the response for the AMT variants of Celerio and Alto K10 continue to be strong, the company is substantially increasing the AMT capacity from 4,000 units to 8,000 units a month. Going ahead, the capacity could possibly be expanded to 12,000 units ar month. This is likely to ease the capacity constrains for AMT models,” according to the company management.
Also, in an indication of improving sentiments and declining cost of ownership, the share of first time buyers for Maruti Suzuki rose to 46 per cent in the first quarter of this fiscal from 43 per cent in the last 2-3 years. The management also indicated that the share of petrol vehicles in the passenger vehicle industry continues to rise, with the customers preferring petrol vehicles in the light of the narrowing price differential between petrol and diesel.
Its market share in passenger car segment rose to 54 per cent during April-July 2015 from 51 per cent a year-ago. New launches and increasing penetration of sales network contributed to this.
Analysts pointed out that its new launches would help grow its overall passenger vehicle market share in almost benign competition. Also, its mid-size sedan Ciaz is expected to be the front runner in sedan segment for Maruti alongside Dzire.
