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Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL), the second largest car maker in the country, launched its first small car last month and is nowhere close to its success with the new Fluidic Verna which made its mark in the midsize sedan segment recently. Although the company received several thousands of enquiries for Eon, the actual conversion rate of enquiries to sales has been extremely poor so far.
The company believes that the only reason for such poor turnout is the current market condition. Eon like Alto from Maruti Suzuki India targets the first time or entry level buyer and with the recent market slump in terms of the high lending rates and petrol price hike, the buyers have kept themselves away from the once affordable small car segment. Continue Reading »
It seems that after the strike at the Manesar plant, Maruti Suzuki India is all set to regain its profits. It plans to launch a sports utility vehicle (SUV) in the market. This is one of the fastest growing segments in the country. The company will showcase a concept for an SUV at the Auto Expo that will be held in Delhi in January, 2011.
A senior executive of the company said that the SUV segment has “grown significantly” over the past years and the company wants to make its presence felt in this segment. He added that it will take at least two years for the company to start manufacturing its SUV. The details of the engine and other specifications are expected to be “worked out” in a short while. Continue Reading »
Maruti Suzuki India, the country’s largest car maker recently announced its plans on opening more driving schools across the country. By more driving schools it means that it aims to increase the number of driving schools to 400 which is more than a double of the current number and all this in a span of only 2 to 3 years.
Mayank Pareek, the Managing Executive Officer of Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) in a statement said, “So far we have trained over 10 lakh people… we now target to double the network of Maruti driving schools to 400 in the next 2-3 years.” Continue Reading »
India’s leading car maker Maruti Suzuki Company reported its huge quarterly net gain, huge as compared to the industry estimates, greatly hit due to the labour unrest at its main plants and increasing interest rates in the third biggest economy of Asia. Two things have greatly affected on the earnings of Maruti such as a slowdown in the Indian economy and increasing competition, even if the resolution of labour unrest, which began in the month of June was a positive according to analysts.
Every second, Maruti produced new passenger vehicles and sold in the month of September in India accounted for just 40% of sales according to the information that got from the company. Continue Reading »
The festive season has not been able to bring profits to the auto industry as expected. The industry seems to be succumbing to the pressure put by various factors like hike in the prices of fuel, expensive lending rates, high costs of inputs and labor agitation in some cases. Barring a few companies, most of the auto giants have experienced this in the past quarter.
Most of the companies reported a drastic drop in their profit levels. The companies that can be put in this list include Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors. However, some auto giants that witnessed a healthy increase in their profit levels include Mahindra & Mahindra. Hitesh Goel from the Institutional Equities said in a report that, “We expect a weak quarter for auto companies driven by the pressure of raw material cost. We expect Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp and M&M to report positive year-on-year earnings growth, while Ashok Leyland, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors are likely to report a decline in earnings.” Continue Reading »
Increasing prices are generally something that auto makers welcome but not in India. Recently, in the month of April there are a few Indian auto makers who were struggling for producing the great collection of cars for fulfilling the demand since sales hit successive monthly highs. Around the entire auto industry, sales of cars fell almost 16 percent in the month of July rather than the last year and 10 percent in the month of August. Decline in the month of September was a comparatively mild 1.4 percent and according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers even if sales number are getting distorted in 3 months to November by the festival season, if purchasers open their wallets. Continue Reading »
The workers refuse to end the strike at the Maruti Suzuki plant at Manesar. This hit the production at four major plants of Maruti Suzuki for the fifth consecutive day. This clash has taken place for the third time in the past five months.To make the matters worse, the Haryana government, instead of putting in its earnest efforts to resolve the issue, is preoccupied with the by-elections at Hissar. The ruling Congress party is being challenged by Anna Hazare; he had appealed to the people not to vote for Congress. The labor department of the Haryana government has slapped ‘breach of settlement notice’ on the workers who are on strike. They are now supposed to resolve the issue within the next two days. Continue Reading »
The strike at the Manesar plant became worse on Sunday as the management of Maruti Suzuki India sacked ten workers from the factory. It also sacked ten trainee workers and another ten employees, in an attempt to bring the situation under control.
On Friday, the situation had gone out of control once again when about 15, 000 workers from the plant and other companies in the area went on strike. They started the strike in the second half of Friday, which caused the work to stop. These laborers were demanding that the causal workers should be taken allowed to resume work. Continue Reading »
The companies such as Tata Motors Ltd, Skoda Auto and Hyundai Motor Co are planning to introduce a slew of cars in India this month. These companies will introduce new cars because they want to win over customers and overturn a slowdown in sales in the biggest automobile market of Asia. A few other companies like Nissan Motor Co, Daimler AG, Honda Motor Co and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd also started selling a few new cars as well as sport-utility vehicles in the month of September ahead of the Diwali season that will start in the month of October. Several consider Diwali festival as an auspicious time for purchasing consumer durables.
The small car Eon will be soon introduced by Hyundai Company in the middle of this month according to Arvind Saxena, director for marketing and sales in the Hyundai Company. He also said that this car will have an 814-cubic centimeter gasoline engine. The aim behind this gasoline engine is that the Hyundai Company wants to make it the small engine capacity car model for Hyundai throughout the world. Mr. Saxena refused to reveal the cost of the Eon. Continue Reading »
The strike at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant continued on the 29th day and the discussion between the management and the workers did not yield any results. Discussions between the management and the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU) are expected to start again tomorrow. The management has refused to hold direct talks with the workers at the Manesar plant. However, it will allow three workers to represent the workers at the Manesar plant when MUKU holds a meeting with the management on the issue.
The company has already hired more than 1400 workers to work in the Manesar plant ever since the workers called a strike. R.C. Bhargav said that if the workers want to resume work, they will have to sign the “good conduct bond”. He said that those who were fired or suspended will not be taken back into the company. About sixty workers have lost their jobs till date. Continue Reading »