Alto, S-Presso, Dzire to Brezza, how Maruti Suzuki cars fared in November

NEW DELHI : After months of stuttering and sputtering, car makers in India had enjoyed some respite in the month of October with sales numbers mostly looking up. All of that, however, could well be attributed to festivities and the graph once again took a turn towards south for most, including Maruti Suzuki.

Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest car maker, saw numbers tumbling in almost every segment it has a product offering in. From Alto, S-Presso and Dzire to the Vitara Brezza, sales figures were quite dismal in the month of November, when compared to figures from the same month in 2018.

Despite the introduction of S-Presso in the mini sub segment, and its strong reception, the smallest cars from Maruti Suzuki saw a fall of 12.2% in sales in November 2019 vis a vis November 2018. This category includes Alto which recently became the only car in India to register 38 lakh sales units, and the old WagonR.

There was some good news in the compact sub segment which has the new WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and the Dzire. The company sold a total of 78,013 units compared to 72,533 units 12 months ago.

The most drastic fall, however, was in the mid-size sub segment in which Maruti Suzuki offers the Ciaz sedan. Only 1,448 of the car found takers, a fall of 62.3% when comparing Novembers of 2019 and November 2018.

Maruti Suzuki's vans also contribute in a big way to the overall figures but the Omni and Eeco together contributed only 10,162 units to the overall figures. This was a fall of 27.7% from the 14,053 units sold in November of 2018.

The fall was marginal in the utility vehicle sub segment which has Gypsy, Ertiga, XL6, S-Cross and Vitara Brezza. Around 300 units less (-1.3%) were sold in the past month.