NEW DELHI: Maruti Suzuki (MSIL) is now not only India’s largest car seller but also has become the biggest exporter of passenger vehicles (PV) from India.
Displacing Korean carmaker Hyundai, which for long has been among the biggest car exporters, Maruti exported more than 205,000 vehicles in CY 2021, a big jump from around 85,000 units exported in 2020. This is also the highest ever export figure in any calendar year achieved by the company.
Maruti’s export is also around 75,000 units more from Hyundai as the latter managed to ship 130,380 units in CY2021 with a growth of 31.8 % year-on-year.
The other big car exporter from India was US-based Ford which last year decided to close its local manufacturing units and exit mass market.
Kenichi Ayukawa, MD & CEO, Maruti Suzuki, said, “This milestone reflects the confidence of customers around the world in the quality, technology, reliability, performance and cost-effectiveness of our cars...We stand committed to live up to the trust placed by our global customers on us and will continue to delight them.”
However, domestic sales of Maruti and Hyundai continue to remain under pressure as production capacity of the two automakers has hit severely by global chip shortage.
Maruti’s top five exports models in 2021 include Baleno, Dzire, Swift, Spresso and Brezza, and if a senior company executive is to be believed, the export models uses less number of chips than the models sold in India.
Maruti vehicles are popular with global customers across Latin America, ASEAN, Africa, Middle East and neighboring regions.
In two-wheelers, Pune-based Bajaj Auto led its strong sales momentum in export markets, with sales of 25lakh-plus units in the calendar year 2021.
This is a 30% increase over the previous year. Two-wheeler exports for CY 2021 stood at 22 lakh-plus units while three-wheeler and quadricycle sales added another 3 lakh-plus units. The 125cc-plus segment contributed 41% of two-wheeler volumes.
Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director, Bajaj Auto, said, “The new year will see further moves into key markets like Brazil and western Europe. Also, we believe the newly launched Pulsar 250 and top-end Dominar portfolio will expand the premium segment and further strengthen our position and performance there.”
TVS Motor ships around 80,000-100,000 units every month. Hero MotoCorp and Honda 2-wheelers have small share in overseas market.