NEW DELHI: India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki (MSIL) on Tuesday reported a near 10 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit to Rs 1,166 crore for the quarter ended March FY21 mainly on account of increase in commodity prices and lower non-operating income. MSIL, unlike other automakers, said it has not seen any noticeable impact of the second Covid-19 wave on its production and sales yet. Demand, it added, also “remains steady” currently.
“We are producing at full capacity, there is no shortage of anything and the labour is available,” said R C Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki. He added, “So far conditions are fine, even if some markets have shut down, there are enough markets which are open for us to sell what we produce. So far sales have not been impacted, we have been able to sell whatever we have produced and send out to the market.”
In the last one week, automakers such Hero MotorCorp, Toyota Kirloskar and MG Motor have decided to temporarily halt production at their facilities amidst rising cases of Covid-19 infection in India. MG on Tuesday said that its manufacturing plant in Halol, Gujarat will be shut for a week till May 5.
Maruti informed that the company has 1,280 active cases of the Covid-19 among its workers out of total of around 28,000. When asked, if the company will consider halting production like others, Bhargava said, “there are factors which we are watching as to how covid progresses, new restrictions come, what impact, all these things are issues which I think cannot be predicted.”
During the March-ended quarter, MSIL’s quarterly sales in the domestic market stood at 4,56,707, up 27 per cent year-on-year. While the caremaker avoided predicting sales forecast for FY22 due to existing uncertainties, it said that demand for passenger vehicles will go up due to the second wave.
“The demand for personal mobility will strengthen further; it is not going to weaken. More and more people would now like to have personal transport,” Bhargava said, adding that the bigger issue for them at the moment is maintaining a robust supply chain as the shortage of semiconductors remains an ongoing issue.
The company is also monitoring closely the availability of oxygen for industrial use. “Maruti Suzuki uses very small amounts of gaseous oxygen. The oxygen situation is something we have to keep a close watch on as it is used by our vendors,” he added.