Maruti Suzuki Believes Car Demand to Drop if COVID-19 Pandemic Continues

The second wave of the COVID-19 has turned out to be quite horrible for India. Like last year, the central government has not implemented a complete lockdown. There are local lockdowns applied by different states across the country. Recently, the chairman of India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki, Mr RC Bhargava said that the ongoing pandemic has no impact on the production, but he shows little concern for the future. In spite of the high risk and increases cases of the deadly virus across India, he says that the production remains unaffected. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 lockdowns in nine states have impacted around 35 per cent of its retail sales in India.

The carmaker has also said that they saw the demands of their vehicles in quite well in the market and even the new booking are also coming. RC Bhargava also revealed that Maruti Suzuki has around 2 lakh bookings, and its network stock is at a sub-optimal level. Early this month, the carmaker had a stock of 32,000 units of vehicles, which has now come up to 90,000 units. The stock of Maruti Suzuki comprises different models of cars from the automaker. He said that it is difficult to predict the demand in the next coming months. Right now, the sales figures remained solid along with a high number of pending deliveries across India. He has also said that our government is busy handling the pandemic situation right now, and they cannot be burdened with the issues related to the industry.

Nevertheless, he said that if the countrywide lockdown is implemented in the near future, it will drastically affect production, manufacturing and sales. The carmaker employs around 30,000 personnel, and around 1,280 employees are COVID+. Mr Bhargava said that even after many people have got infected with the deadly virus and are not on their regular work schedule. It has not impacted the production of Maruti cars across India. The carmaker has also started a new production line at the company’s plant in Gujarat.