Oct sales driven by stimulus, festive demand: Maruti

Excerpts from What's Hot on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » Nifty BSE | NSE 29/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India has reported sales of 85,415 units in October - a jump of 32.45% compared to the same period last year. Domestic sales were up 21% to 7,155.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Mayank Pareek, Executive Officer - Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki gave an overview of the sales and growth numbers for this month.
Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Mayank Pareek on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Pareek: October was a festival month. So, domestic market has grown by 32%, export by 158% and overall we have got a 23% growth. However, we should be cautious in interpreting these numbers because this growth of 32% in October is coming on a very low base of last year. The right thing would be to see the growth over two years. If you see over two years the growth is around 12%.
So, there is an annualized 6% growth in the domestic market.

This growth started actually since January last year when the stimulus package from the government had come. That is one prime driver for this current growth.

Q: Also there were a lot of festive offers, like you have said earlier festive growth also saw a surge in sales. What is the status on that? Have you withdrawn the festive offers, how is it panning out going ahead?

A: Festival offers are over with the festivals. Yes on a serious note the offers on the vehicles have come down. If you see on average a 20% reduction will be there over the festive period. They have come down.

Q: Going ahead now that A2, A3 segments have been really your front runners where would this stress really lie for the company. What are the segments will we see the company going aggressively into?

A: Our company's philosophy is to be a leader in every segment which we work. So if you see in A1, A2, and A3, in all segments where we are present we are market leaders. Our second principle is to have a multi-brand strategy in each segment to sustain that leadership. Instead of depending only on one product we depend on more than that product. Going forward, I do not see any reason for change in that principle. We will continue to strive for leadership in every segment.