Maruti Suzuki posted negative growth in November but the market share has increased to 54%, thanks to higher degrowth of other manufacturers
Most of the manufacturers were looking forward to the festival season to improve sales but this year didn’t deliver as sales dropped by 14 per cent in the 42 day festival period. But despite the lower sales in November, Maruti Suzuki has increased the market share to 54.6 per cent, which is an increase of 1.7 per cent compared to the same month last year.
In fact, the top five manufacturers (Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata, Mahindra and Honda) in volume have all increased market share thanks to the high volume and higher degrowth of other OEMs. Maruti has managed to sell 1,43,890 units in November 2018 compared to 1,44,296 units in the same month last year thus registering 0.3 per cent negative growth.
The reason for negative growth is because of low volume from Nexa dealerships as sales decreased by 5 per cent but the regular wing of Maruti registered 1 per cent growth thanks to models like new Swift and Vitara Brezza. The company has also announced huge discount offers for the entire portfolio and let’s see whether the aggressive tactics will pay off.
Maruti recently launched the second generation of Ertiga and it is priced aggressively, which might help the company to improve sales and end 2018 on a positive note. The company is also planning to introduce new generation Wagon R early next year, which will continue the growth momentum along with new variants of other models.
Hyundai also registered negative growth of 1 per cent in November, even though the company launched the much awaited new Santro and the initial response for the hatchback is impressive. The Korean manufacturer increased its market share by 0.4 per cent last month to 16.6 per cent to cement its second position.
Tata Motors also followed the path of the other two manufacturers as the company posted negative but they managed to beat Mahindra to get the third position in sales and the big launch will be Harrier in early 2019. Mahindra and Honda are two big gainers as both of them registered positive growth in November.