Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Maruti Suzuki beats a million cars a year


Japanese-controlled Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest passenger car company said Tuesday it had connected the global club of carmakers producing at least one million vehicles a year.

General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford and Honda are along with the vehicle companies in the select group.

Maruti Suzuki, 54.2 percent owned by Suzuki Motor Corp, is the first Indian automobile company to unite the million clubs, the company said in a statement.

Suzuki Motor chairman Osamu Suzuki attended a ceremony at the company's plant in Manesar near New Delhi to mark the milestone and proclaimed new plans to invest 50 billion yen (555 million dollars) in India as competition heats up in the country's fast-growing car market.

India is the Japanese company's biggest foreign market, and Suzuki Motor is anxious to fend off global rivals such as Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors which are forcefully seeking to boost sales in the country.

We achieved one million units but to attain production of two million... will be a tough journey, the Suzuki Motor chairman said.

Half of the 50 billion yen to be invested will be spent on growing engine production and the other half on setting up a research and development facility.

Company officials too laid the foundation stone for Maruti's plant expansion at Manesar which will see the facility producing 550,000 units a year from 300,000.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi set up the car company with Suzuki almost three decades ago to serve the ordinary people of India

Last year, Maruti's sales outstripped Suzuki's performance in Japan and the company is credited with revolutionizing car transport in India by making reasonable cars for a burgeoning middle class.

Cumulatively, we have produced more than 8.8 million cars in India, said the Suzuki chairman as the millionth car for the current financial year to March -- a red hatchback Maruti Suzuki Swift -- rolled off the assembly line.

Maruti, which sells one in two cars in the country, formed its first car -- the hatchback Maruti 800 -- in 1983 and it became a best seller.

In its first full financial year of commercial processes, production reached a little over 22,000 cars but in the past few years output has soared.

India is now Asia's third-largest car market, outpaced only by China and Japan, and is one of the few countries where automobile sales are fast increasing.

Car sales largely jumped 19 percent last year to 1.43 million units.


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