Maruti Suzuki bets on Nov weddings for festive sales

NEW DELHI: With a record October month behind, the country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is banking on a “few lakhs marriages” slated for November to carry forward the festive sales momentum, as per a senior company official.

The company clocked retail sales of 2,02,402 units last month, which is its highest for any October month on the back of festive sales, breaking the previous record of 1,91,476 units posted in October 2020.

“We are made to understand that some ‘few lakhs’ marriages are being planned across the country (in November). So we are pretty hopeful that it will also give us good traction in terms of our retail sales,” said Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer, marketing and sales, Maruti Suzuki India.

He was responding to a query on whether the company would be able to carry on the momentum of festive season sales for the next few months.

“We have to see actually but we feel there are a good number of marriages this time in the month of November. The number of days for marriages, they are almost all-time high of some 11 or 12 days We are hopeful that in November, since so many marriages are there, the momentum will carry and that’s what we are looking forward to,” Banerjee said. With the festive season giving a much-needed boost to sales, Maruti Suzuki India is confident of staying on track with the forecast of 4-5 per cent growth for the ongoing fiscal.

“In terms of retail sales in the April to October period, we have a growth of almost 4 per cent cumulatively. In October we had a growth of 22.4 per cent...” he said when queried on outlook.