With the customer preference of buying cars is shifting towards diesel version of cars in the Indian market, the country’s leading car maker Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has said that it will be focusing more on rolling-out the diesel segment of cars.
While speaking to the reporters in Mumbai, Maruti Suzuki Managing Director and Chief Executive Shinzo Nakanishi said, "Our market share has slipped to 40 per cent in 2011. This was due to slowdown in the industry and lower sales of petrol models compared to diesel car production."
The major focus of the firm would be on enhancing production of diesel variant of its popular cars. Maruti has a joint venture engine manufacturing plant in Gurgaon with Suzuki Power train India Limited, which will be having a total production of 3,00,000 diesel engines a year in the coming months. In addition to this, the company will be souring about 1,00,000 diesel engines per annum from the Italian car maker Fiat.
Speaking on the company’s performance and growth forecast, Mr. Nakanishi said, "Following the turnaround in the auto industry, our first target will be to quickly cover growth of 10-11 per cent as we have had a negative growth of 17 per cent during the April-December, 2011, period."
At present, the company has four of its portfolio models in the diesel versions, including hatchbacks Maruti Ritz and Swift, and sedans like Swift Dzire and SX4.
