Maruti expects passenger vehicle sales to cross 10-lakh mark in festive season

Country's largest automaker Maruti Suzuki has said that it expects overall domestic passenger vehicle to cross 10-lakh mark this festive period, thanks to robust demand, especially for utility vehicles. The 68-day festive period this year will begin on August 17 and go on till November 14, expect for a few days in between which are not considered auspicious for buying.

The company's Senior Executive Officer - Marketing and Sales, Shashank Srivastava, told PTI that usually the festive season sales account for around 22-26 per cent of the overall sales during a year. "With the overall passenger vehicle sales expected to be in the range of 40 lakh units this fiscal, the festive season is expected to witness sales of around 1 million units," he said.

Srivastava said the industry has witnessed strong sales this year and the same is expected to continue in the coming months as well. "We have seen the best ever April, May, June and July in terms of sales this fiscal. July witnessed the second highest sales ever in a month at around 3.52 lakh units. August is also expected to be in the range of 3.5 lakh units," he said.

He added that though demand parameters continue to remain robust, the only two issues which need to be kept looked into are - the way monsoon performs between August and September and high rate of vehicle loans as around 83 per cent of the consumers take this route to buy cars.

Maruti Suzuki currently has a market share of around 43 per cent in the overall passenger vehicle segment. When asked about sales projections forMaruti Suzuki, Srivastava said the company also gets around 22-25 per cent of its overall yearly sales during the festive period.