India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India Senior Executive Officer (SEO), Marketing & Sales, Shashank Srivastava on Friday said India became the third-largest passenger vehicle production country globally in 2022. “We just went ahead of Japan, which is at number 4. We are happy that Suzuki helped us in attaining this milestone for our country,” said Srivastava during the ABP Network’s ‘Ideas of India Summit’.
On the journey of India’s most iconic brand Maruti Suzuki in India, Srivastava said the experience has been fruitful both from the organisational perspective and the contribution the company made to the Indian economy.
“In the last 40 years, the company has sold 2.5 crore vehicles. We are proud of our contribution since we partnered with Suzuki,” the SEO said.
On footprints of Maruti Suzuki, he said there are 3500 showrooms, and 4,000 plus workshops covering 3,000 cities. “Out of the 6.5 lakh villages in India, one Maruti Suzuki car has been sold in 4.50 lakh villages,” said Srivastava.
The growth also shows an upswing in the Indian economy. “The demography is young as 60 per cent of buyers are less than 35 years,” he said. “We are bullish on our sales in India as car consumption is expected to continue to increase. We aim to sell 6 million by 2030 from the current level of 3.8 million in 2022,” he added.
On contribution to the ‘Make in India initiative,’ he said that the export will continue to rise because of the technology from Suzuki that helped in developing the vendor base here and helped with localization. It helped in controlling cost and building efficiency and also create a base for the export of components which is a big industry from the industry, he said.
The amount of export that is possible due to component manufacturers has generated immense employment opportunities in the country. On increasing competition in the SUV segment, he said it helps the company to look at productivity, cost structure and other things and thus improve efficiency. “The desire to improve continuously inspired by Japanese Kaizen learning has helped us grow,” he added. The SUV segment which was just 15 per cent five years back has gone up to 45 per cent now while hatchbacks have come down from 45 per cent to 35 per cent, he noted.
The biggest strength of Maruti Suzuki in the small car segment reflects in the market share of the company, he pointed out. He added that excluding SUVs, Maruti’s share is 65 per cent in the market while the share comes down to 45 per cent including SUVs.
“We need to strengthen our SUV space. The company is expanding cars in the segment and we hope to target 50 per cent market share,” he noted. The company also witnessed recovery in the small car segment. The entry-level segment was affected last year as the affordability factor came down because of the rise in prices faster than the increase in income level due to regulatory hurdles, taxation among other issues.
“We’ll see a mix of technologies in response to stringent regulations regarding emissions,” he added.
On electric vehicles, he said, “We need to look at the entire picture from cradle to grave, also well to wheel, not just from tank to wheel. We believe we will see a mix of technologies in response to stringent regulations regarding emissions that will come in our country.”
“We will launch EVX in FY 2025-25. We will have 6 EVS in different segments by 2030. Our estimate is this market which is 1% today will be around 3 per cent in 2024-25, and will be about 17per cent in 2030 which is about out of 6 million cars, 1 million will be EVs in 2030,” Srivastava said.
The previous session saw Yasukata Fukahori, Consul-General of Japan in Mumbai speaking at the summit.
On Budget 2023, Srivastava pointed out the auto industry’s growth “very highly correlated” with the overall economy, and said the “growth oriented” Budget of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has ticked “most of the boxes” as far as the auto industry is concerned.
The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Naya India: Looking Inward, Reaching Out’. The second edition will take place on February 24-25. The two-day summit will be graced by several eminent personalities from all walks of life sharing their views on important issues ranging from the current climate to the crisis in the global economy.
Earlier session also saw RSS Leader Krishna Gopal speaking at the Summit. Gopal said Uniform Civil Code is within the will of the Constitutional framework, Supreme Court has directed Centre to prepare for UCC several times.
The summit will see notable speakers such as Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, lyricist and poet Javed Akhtar, singers Lucky Ali and Shubha Mudgal, authors Amitav Ghosh and Devdutt Pattanaik, actresses Sara Ali Khan and Zeenat Aman, actors Ayushmann Khurrana and Manoj Vajpayee, celebrity chef Vikas Khanna, sports stars Jwala Gupta and Vinesh Phogat, and many more.