India’s passenger vehicle market leader Maruti Suzuki India, which had shut down its manufacturing two plants in Haryana – Gurgaon and Mansar – from May 1 to 9, has announced that it is extending the shutdown to May 16.

The company says that the maintenance shutdown is in view of the current pandemic situation in the country. The Delhi-NCR region is one of the most affected parts of the country. The Suzuki Motor Guajarat plant at Hansalpur will also maintain the same shutdown schedule.

In April 2021, Maruti Suzuki reported total sales of 135,879 units, showing a month-on-month (MoM) decline of 7.1 percent when compared to its performance in the previous month – March 2021 – which stood at 146,203 units.

The duo of Alto and S-Presso went home to 25,041 buyers and the six pack of the WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire and Tour S registered sales of 72,318 units. While the Ciaz sedan could clock only 1,567 units, the UV pack of Gypsy, Ertiga, Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and XL6 sold 25,484 units.

With the three plants shutdown for the first half of the month and key car buying states like Maharashtra and Delhi-NCR seeing lockdowns, Maruti numbers as well as total passenger vehicle sales numbers for May 2021 will be hugely impacted.

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