NEW DELHI: Beating street estimates, India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported a 57.7% year-on-year increase in its standalone profit after tax (PAT) to Rs 1,839 crore during the March ended quarter (Q4FY22) on the back of price hikes and lower sales promotion cost.
The company’s standalone net sales came at Rs 25,514 crore in the quarter, registering a growth of 11.1% Y-o-Y. For the full year, Maruti Suzuki’s PAT fell by 12.3% to Rs 3,766 crore as compared Rs 4,230 crore reported in the previous financial year.
The fall in PAT during the fiscal came even as sales grew by 26% to Rs 83,798 crore. “Production during the year was impacted by shortage of components by an estimated 270,000 vehicles, mostly domestic models, because of which there were pending customer bookings of nearly 268,000 vehicles at the end of the year.
In addition, the first quarter witnessed a disruption owing to the second Covid wave,” said the carmaker.
Going forward, the carmaker will shift focus from its ‘bread and butter’ hatchback segment to other categories as poor purchasing power of entry-level customers has resulted in deep shrinkage of this segment.
Maruti Suzuki India Chairman RC Bhargava said, “There’s no butter in small cars anymore. We will have to change our strategy. People with limited income are getting squeezed out of the car market due to higher cost...The market for hatchbacks is “shrinking significantly.”
He added, “Compared to 2018-19, the segment has shrunk by 4 lakh units in 2021-22, from 15.5 lakh units to 11.5 lakh units. This is over 25% fall in size of the market. Low-priced cars became unaffordable for people due to regulatory changes, higher taxes, increases in commodity prices. We have only bread now, the butter has gone.”