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30 September, 2011 The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Thursday said it aims to double its sales network by 2015 across India with a focus on small towns and cities.
MSI on Thursday announced opening of its 1,000th sales showroom for its products in Surat, Gujarat, as a part of the strategy to expand into tier-II and tier-III cities across the country.
“Network expansion is strategic to our business and we would continue to focus on it. We target to double our sales network in next five years, in line with the company’s sales plan,” MSI Managing Director and CEO Shinzo Nakanishi said in a statement.
Besides the plan to increase the number of car outlets, the company has also undertaken an initiative of upgrading its three year old showrooms under project ‘Nav Nirman’.
“The objective of ‘Nav Nirman’ is to provide customers uniform buying experience across the country,” it added.
Meanwhile, the company which is facing labour unrest at its Manesar plant, said it has rolled out 690 Swift cars combined from Gurgaon and Manesar facilities today.
It also produced 60 units of A-star and SX4 models from Manesar plants.
“In the last two days, in addition to Swift, the company has also started making these two models at Manesar where focus until now remained on attaining normal production levels for Swift model,” the company said in a separate statement.
Currently, there are 1,500 people available for production at Manesar plants. This includes 1,120 experienced and trained technicians brought in by the company in the last few days, it added.

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07 July, 2011 In an attempt to bring in passengers who work in the infrastructure and construction space where they are required to travel with their team and machinery, auto firm Mahindra and Mahindra rolled out the two cabin pick up called ‘Genio’ on Wednesday.
The earlier version of the commercial vehicle was a single cabin pick up which could accommodate the drive, a co-passenger and their cargo. The latest would have two passenger rows and a cargo space. “ double cabin pick up are hugely popular in Thailand and Europe and judging by the growth in the retail and infrastructure industry here, we know this will be a ready market in India," Vivek Nayer, Senior VP, Marketing for their automotive division said.
The other pick up on similar lines is Bolero double cabin but the company is sure that there would be cannibalization. This despite there is only a difference of Rs 38,000 between the Genio and the Bolero double cabin pick up. The base variant of the new car is at priced at Rs 5.46 lakh while the higher variant which comes with more fittings is at Rs 5.95 lakh. “ Although this will be an international class product compared to the Bolero there will be takers for both varieties,” Nair said.
The company’s expansion in the pick up segment could also be to maintain the 75 percent market share they have in a segment that industry watchers say is being eyed by General Motors and Volkswagen. Around 75,000 units are sold in this segment annually in India.
Produced in the firm’s Chakan plant which has seen an investment of Rs 225 crore for the product development and production of single and double cabin Genio. The company which posted a 51 percent year on year growth in exports this June, will fit in a more powerful engine for the units that will be exported.

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