Rural sales drive Maruti

New Delhi: For India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki, rural sales have come as  a “life-saver” at a time when the consumer sentiments is low.

“The thrust of the marketing department five years ago to rural areas has come as a life-saver for us. Our rural sales have grown by 18 per cent due to which our overall sales between April and November of this fiscal have grown by one per cent,” said Maruti Suzuki India, chairman R. C. Bhargava.

He said that if the rural sales had not increased, the company would also have seen a negative growth like the whole of industry.

Surprisingly, the carmaker’s urban sales have declined by five per cent during the April-November period.  Now, rural sales constitute around 30 per cent of Maruti's overall sales from 26 per cent last year. “We will continue with this rural thrust,” said Bhargava.

The company is planning to have presence in a total of one lakh villages across the country by March next year.­ “We have been giving importance to rural markets. Last year, we had covered 44,000 villages and till November this year, we have presence in 60,000 villages and by March next year, we will have our presence in one lakh out of a total of 6.51 lakh villages in India,” said Bhargava.

While the company has grown by one per cent this fiscal till November, he said: “The industry has declined by nine per cent sans Maruti’s figure. This is not a happy situation. We are hoping that we will end the year with retail sales more or less flat as compared to the last year.”

“The one per cent may or may not remain  by the end of this year. But, we don’t expect to go below last year retail sales, we may be a little bit higher,” the chairman said.

Meanwhile the company’s chief operating officer (marketing and sales) said that the number of first time buyers has declined from 70 per cent last year to 64 per cent in the current year. However, he said that company is expecting December to break monthly record in terms  of retail sales with about 1.2 lakh units.