JAPANESE-CONTROLLED Maruti Suzuki, India’s biggest passenger car company, said on Tuesday (March 23) it had joined the global club of carmakers producing at least one million vehicles a year.
General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford and Honda are among the vehicle companies in the select group.
Maruti Suzuki, 54.2 per cent owned by Suzuki Motor Corp, is the “first Indian automobile company to join the million club,” the company said in a statement.
Suzuki Motor chairman Osamu Suzuki attended a ceremony at the company’s plant in Manesar near New Delhi to mark the milestone and announced new plans to invest $555m (£372m) in India as competition heats up in the country’s fast-growing car market.
“All world-class manufacturers are entering India and we are facing severe competition here,” the Suzuki chairman told reporters.
India is the Japanese company’s biggest foreign market, and Suzuki Motor is anxious to fend off global rivals such as Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors which are aggressively seeking to boost sales in the country.
“We achieved one million units but to achieve production of two million will be a tough journey,” the Suzuki Motor chairman said.
Half of the $55m to be invested will be spent on expanding engine production and the other half on setting up a research and development facility.
Company officials also laid the foundation stone for Maruti’s plant expansion at Manesar which will see the facility producing 550,000 units a year from 300,000.
Former prime minister Indira Gandhi set up the car company with Suzuki nearly three decades ago to “serve the ordinary people of India”.
Last year, Maruti’s sales outstripped Suzuki’s performance in Japan and the company is credited with revolutionising transport in India by making affordable cars for a burgeoning middle class.
“Cumulatively, we have produced over 8.8 million cars in India,” said the Suzuki chairman as the millionth car for the current financial year to March – a red hatchback Maruti Suzuki Swift – rolled off the assembly line.
Maruti, which sells one in two cars in the country, produced its first car – the hatchback Maruti 800 – in 1983 and it became a best seller.
In its first full financial year of commercial operations, production reached a little over 22,000 cars but in the past few years output has soared.
India is now Asia’s third-largest car market, outpaced only by China and Japan, and is one of the few countries where automobile sales are rapidly increasing.
Car sales overall jumped 19 per cent last year to 1.43 million units.
