Leading automakers in India are ramping up production and building dealer inventory to meet strong customer demand as the country enters the peak festive buying season. This effort aims to ensure adequate vehicle availability and convert healthy bookings into retail sales.
Increased Production Capacity
Mahindra & Mahindra has scaled up its utility vehicle and electric vehicle manufacturing capacity to 68,000 units a month to improve supply and reduce waiting periods.
Maruti Suzuki India, the car market leader, currently has 220,000 pending bookings ahead of the festive season. The company’s Senior Executive Officer, Partho Banerjee, stated:
“"At the beginning of this financial year, we had 12 days of stock. The current bookings pendency is 220,000, which translates to 16 days of stock before the festive season. We have already commissioned two new production lines, adding 500,000 capacity in total. The production is being ramped up gradually, and we expect these lines to fully stabilise by year-end."
Banerjee also mentioned that the company is calibrating production and supplies across models to prevent waiting periods from rising disproportionately for individual vehicles during the festive period. He added:
“"For Maruti Suzuki, our supply chain and production teams are putting in efforts and trying to meet the festival demand. However, due to supply constraints, we may introduce special schemes for our pending booking customers."
