Maruti Suzuki sells 147,388 units in June, compact and utility vehicles show way

Maruti Suzuki on Thursday announced it had sold a total of 147,388 units in the month of June - domestic and exports combined. Maruti had sold 57,228 in the same month of 2020 when the country was emerging from lockdown imposed owing to Covid-19.

While the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has once again been challenging for the auto industry, Maruti's June sales figures could well be a sign of some recovery on the horizon.

The country's largest car maker sold a total of 68,849 cars in the compact sub-segment which includes models like WagonR, Swift, Dzire, Celerio, Baleno and Ignis. Maruti had sold 26,696 units from the compact sub-segment in June of 2020.

The mini sub-segment which features Alto and S-Presso also fared well and 17,438 units were sold in the month gone by, as against 10,458 units in June of 2020.

Utility vehicles like Vitara Brezza, Ertiga, XL6 and S-Cross are also key for Maruti and the company sold a total of 28,172 units last month vis-a-vis 9,764 units from a year ago.

The mid-size sedan segment remains the tricky bit with just 602 units of Ciaz finding takers.

Maruti also informed that exports increased four-fold to 17,020 units last month.

It is important to note here that a comparison between figures from June of 2021 and 2020 may not be an absolutely fair comparison because of the varying challenges emerging from the pandemic in both years. While there was a national lockdown in place in the first wave of the pandemic, the lockdowns were local - even if widespread - this year. The scale of pent-up demand may also vary, a key factor that auto companies are baking on to pave the way forward.