BackMaruti increases Celerio AMT output to cut waiting period
Since February, the firm has received bookings for over 57,800 units, of which 43% are for cars with automated manual transmission technology
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New Delhi: India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is looking to increase the supply of the auto gear shift version of its latest compact hatchback Celerio to reduce the waiting period that currently stands at about four months.
Since its launch in February, the company has so far received bookings for over 57,800 units of Celerio, out of which 43% (25,000) are for units with automated manual transmission (AMT) technology.
“We continue to try and increase the supply of the auto gear shift (Celerio) cars," a company spokesperson said.
Maruti Suzuki had increased the monthly production of Celerio with the AMT option to 6,500 units from about 4,500 units when it was launched.
Almost 7,000 units of Celerio AMT have been retailed so far, while for the manual transmission variant, the sales stand at 22,000 units, the spokesperson said.
On the waiting period, he said it would be around four months for the Celerio AMT but none for the manual transmission version, except for some variants which could be around eight weeks.
The company has been hampered by supply constraints of AMT technology sourced from Italy’s auto component major Magneti Marelli SpA, which plans to shift its AMT production to Maruti’s supplier’s park at Manesar in India in about a year’s time.
The Celerio with AMT is currently priced at ₹ 4.14 lakh and ₹ 4.43 lakh, while the manual transmission models (four) are priced between ₹ 3.76 lakh and ₹ 4.78 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
In May, the company expanded the range with the launch of a CNG (compressed natural gas) variant, priced at ₹ 4.68 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
With Celerio, the car maker has worked on addressing three key issues associated with automatic transmission cars—high cost of acquisition, low fuel economy and maintenance hassles.
Traditionally the automatic transmission variant of small cars in India has not been successful and accounted for only about 1% of the market.
Maruti had estimated the AMT version of its model to account for about 25% of sales but has been overwhelmed with the demand of almost double the estimates.
Celerio is pitched against the likes of Hyundai Motor Co.’s Grandi10 and Honda Motor Co.’s Brio. Their automatic versions are priced at ₹ 5.90 lakh and ₹ 5.99 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi), respectively.
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