As India’s car market enjoys a buoyant festival season, a number of cars such as Maruti’s Dzire and Ritz, Honda’s City, Hyundai’s i20 and Toyota’s Fortuner SUV are reportedly in short supply.
The Economic Times says that carmakers are now being forced to ramp up production to meet demand.
The newspaper says that Maruti has re-jigged its operations to produce more of its newer cars such as Ritz, Estilo, Swift and DZire, while Honda has hiked production of its flagship sedan City and General Motors is operating its factory on all seven days to meet the market demand for the Spark, Tavera and Aveo.
The festive season has also put other cars such as Hyundai’s I10 and Toyota’s Innova besides Mahindra and Mahindra’s Xylo out of dealer stock.
Auto industry executives say that the dual-combination of the prevailing festival mood and the slew of new car launches in recent past has contributed to the high sales in the past two weeks, the ET reports.
“The interest rates, which are at the lowest level since the past two years is also pushing up volumes,” said Shashank Srivastava chief general manager (marketing) at Maruti.
