Maruti Suzuki, the country’s leading carmaker, is faced with a problem of plenty, as it has an active order book of close to 4 lakh vehicles that are yet to be delivered. In an interaction with carandbike, a senior company official confirmed the passenger vehicle market leader currently has a total of 3.87 lakh orders it is yet to fulfil, a problem exacerbated by the global semiconductor shortage that has hampered manufacturers for the better part of the last two years. Of the 3.87 lakh orders, over 95,000 orders are for the company’s popular MPV, the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga, confirmed Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Limited.
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Maruti also holds over 55,000 open bookings for the Brezza at present.
“This [high number of pending orders] is largely because of models that we are not able to produce in sufficient numbers because of the semiconductor shortage. Initially, we were struggling with all models, but now, we are struggling with some models, specifically the larger ones, such as the Ertiga, XL6, Brezza, Vitara and Fronx”, said Srivastava.
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After the Ertiga, it is the in-demand Brezza sub-compact SUV that has the highest pending orders, amounting to over 55,000 units. A gaggle of Nexa offerings, including the Fronx, Grand Vitara, XL6 and Jimny, make up a big chunk of the total pending orders. Maruti is yet to fulfil over 32,000 orders for the Fronx crossover and over 31,000 orders for the recently-launched Jimny 4x4. At present, Maruti is delivering over 10,000 units of the Fronx every month, having received over 52,000 bookings for the Baleno-based crossover till date, Srivastava added.
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Waiting period for the Grand Vitara has risen to over four months.
Similarly, the Grand Vitara compact SUV, too, has seen waiting periods for it rise to over four months. So far, Maruti Suzuki has sold over 70,000 units of the Vitara since its launch in 2022, and the strong hybrid variant currently makes up about 25 per cent of total Vitara sales, Srivastava told carandbike.
The carmaker is expecting the chip shortage – which caused a production loss of 1.7 lakh units last fiscal – to cause a substantial production loss once again this quarter. However, Srivastava said Maruti expects the shortage to ease off from the second quarter onwards, and that the carmaker will be able to ramp up production to quickly fulfil pending orders and reduce wait periods for its vehicles.
Maruti Suzuki will soon add to its portfolio with the launch of the Invicto – a flagship MPV based on the Toyota Innova Hycross – on July 5.
