Car Market growth to be stagnant in FY25, Maruti will look to outperform says R C Bhargava

R C Bhargava, the Chairman of Maruti Suzuki says the car industry’s growth rate next year is likely to be stagnant or flat in FY25 due to the continued sluggish performance of the small car segment.  

"I am told that the industry is not very optimistic for next year, the growth rate is virtually at a stagnation level that is partly due to degrowth in the small car segment. India needs the small car segment to grow for a sustained growth in the future," said Bhargava post the Q2 earnings call with the media on Friday.

The Indian passenger vehicle market has been scaling new peaks literally every month of this financial year and on a high base, sustaining the growth will be very tough, with a small car market continuing to languish.

The head of the largest car maker however says, that this year, the market should grow by 5-5.5 percent, but Maruti Suzuki on its part will look for outperformance and grow by 10 percent in FY24.

"As against last year's volumes of 16.4 lakh units in the domestic market, we will be over 18 lakh units, we will be growing better than the industry this year, which is only making up for what we had lost in the past and it is nothing exceptional, we will still be below our 50 percent share," said Bhargava.

For Maruti Suzuki, the company is witnessing decent traction in both urban and rural areas and both ends of the market should grow by 10 percent in the current year led by a new range of products.

Bhargava said, that with the semiconductor supplies improving and the production ramp up, the pending booking for the company is likely to come down to 2.2 lakh units at the end of the October, as against a peak of 4 lakh pending bookings about a couple of quarters ago. 

The company for the first time produced over 1 million vehicles in the first half of FY24 and Bhargava said he is hopeful of scaling the 2 million units production plan in FY24. 

He guided for exports volumes to remain flat for the current financial year before the overseas volumes start scaling up once the new capacity comes on stream next year.