The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga has pending orders of close to one lakh units while the Brezza has around 60,000 units
In the opening quarter of this FY, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) is expecting a shortage of production due to the semiconductor issues but the situation is hoped to improve in the next quarter. In the last financial year, the largest car producer in the country was said to have lost 1.7 lakh units and around 38,000 units in Q4 FY23 due to chip shortage.
The current backlog of more than four lakh units indicates that the demand is indeed higher than the supply. The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga has pending bookings of close to one lakh units. Senior Executive Officer (Sales and Marketing) of Maruti Suzuki India Limited, Shashank Srivastava, told in an interview that his company has endured production loss in April as well.
A similar trend is expected in the months of May and June too. While the Ertiga MPV has the highest order backlog of close to one lakh units, the new generation Brezza, which was launched in June 2022 and well received amongst customers, has 60,000 units. It is worth noting that the soon-to-be-launched Jimny lifestyle off-road SUV and Fronx compact SUV coupe have bookings of over 30,000 units each.
From July, Srivastava expects the supply of electronic components to improve to alleviate the production loss. In April 2023, the Indo-Japanese manufacturer rolled out 1,44,097 units, which was down by 6 per cent compared to the same period last year with close to 1,53,000 units. In the last fiscal, the brand manufactured a massive total of 19.22 lakh units.
Amidst being a record, Maruti Suzuki fell short of its projections of 20 lakh units due to chip shortage. Over the last year or so, Maruti Suzuki has been on a launch spree as it entered new segments alongside updating products in the ones that it already competes in. The new-gen Celerio and Baleno, mildly updated Ertiga and XL6, all-new Alto K10, Grand Vitara and Brezza came during this period.
The Fronx was launched only a few months ago and it will be followed by the Jimny off-road SUV on June 7 in two variants and the badge-engineered Innova Hycross within the next two months. Over the next two years, the company will launch a seven-seater Grand Vitara and its first all-electric SUV based on a skateboard platform.