Mahindra garners 2.81 lakh open SUV orders, to ramp up production to meet demand

M&M revealed that while Lifestyle SUV Thar has currently over 68,000 open bookings and continues to garner 10,000 bookings of both 2WD and 4WD variants per month

Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), which claims to have the maximum revenue market share among SUVs (sports utility vehicles), said that it has open orders for over 2.81 lakh such vehicles as of 1st August, 2023. To address this, the company is ramping up production by 25 per cent, to 49,000 units per month by FY23-end, from 39,000 currently.

M&M revealed that it has managed to sell over 1.86 lakh SUVs during Q1 FY24, the highest in a quarter. The Mumbai-based automaker’s vehicle sales during the period were up 21 percent from the year prior.

“We have open bookings for 2,81,000 units in spite of the ramp in production because of the strong demand for our newer models,” stated Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Director and CEO, Auto and Farm, at Mahindra & Mahindra.

M&M said that the lifestyle SUV Thar currently has over 68,000 open bookings and continues to clock about 10,000 bookings a month across its two-wheel drive (2WD) and four-wheel drive (4WD) variants. Mahindra's Scorpio brand of models, which includes the Scorpio Classic and the Scorpio N, have over 1.17 lakh open bookings, and together clock 14,000 units per month.

The XUV7OO sees 8,000 bookings a month and has over 77,000 open orders at the moment. The popular Bolero line-up, including the standard Bolero and the Bolero Neo, have around 8,400 pending orders.

“There are certain brands that continue to be very strong (on bookings). Overall, we’re seeing about 48,000 new bookings a month,” added Jejurikar.

Prolonged wait

Jejurikar said that the huge order book has resulted in a protracted waiting period, varying from 5-6 months for some models, to about a year-and-a-half for others.

“The waiting period varies by model. For the Thar 2WD variant, which is right now the most in demand, it's over a year-and-a-half. Thar as a brand is doing very well. The launch of the 2WD variant helped build the brand further. The Thar 4WD has a waiting period of five months,” explained Jejurikar while responding to a media query.

He further said that the top-end version of XUV7OO commands a wait period of close to a year, and added that the wait for a Scorpio N also goes up to over a year.

“XUV7OO and Scorpio were the most affected by the semiconductor crisis, especially with regard to the chips in the airbag control unit. But that is behind us now, and we would be ramping up production of both of these over the next few months,” said Jejurikar.

Last month, the company billed around 37,000 units, or about 95 percent of its total production capacity. Jejurikar added that though the semiconductor crisis is nearly over, the industry is not completely out of the woods.

“We are producing at the full capacity of 39,000 units (per month), and our sales are very close to that. We will produce 49,000 (units per month) by the end of this financial year,” Jejurikar added. However, he maintained, “There might be surprises on the semiconductor front, which we are not able to see at the moment. But we believe most known issues are behind us. And our supply chain is robust for now.”