Maruti: A journey of 25 years

From a monopoly to battling stiff competition from global players, Maruti has shed its public sector tag to emerge as a globally competitive automaker in the last 25 years .

 

Maruti came into being at a time when the Indian car industry had stagnated at a volume of 40,000 cars a year. Selling about 6 lakh 30 thousand units today, they want to scale it up to selling a million cars per year by 2010.

 

That's how far India's largest car manufacturer has come. Since it's incorporation in 1981, Maruti has transformed its dream of producing a low cost car for the average Indian, this in spite of skepticism.

 

Krishnamurthy, Chairman, Manufacturing Competitiveness, said, "We were laughed at - the idea of doing so, and people thought we are mad."

 

But Maruti dared to dream. After a long and agonising search, Maruti Udyog, a fully- owned government company selected Suzuki Motor Corporation, the world's leader in small cars as a JV partner and Maruti Suzuki was born in 1982.

 

The company went into production in a record 13 months and the first car was rolled out of the Maruti plant in December 1983.

 

Maruti also changed the fate of the Indian Auto component industry. As sales picked, so did the fortunes of Maruti's vendors like Asahi Glass, Amtek Auto, Sona Steering, Subros, Jay Bharat Maruti. Today, Maruti has almost 225 vendors.

 

Surinder Kapur, Chairman, Sona Koyo Steering, states, "Auto component industry has been revolutionised by the coming of Suzuki in India through Maruti."

 

Maruti has been the first car for millions of Indians. In fact, the Maruti 800 has ruled the roads and sales charts for almost two decades, long after global players drove in. Today, Maruti has around 6 million customers across the world.

 

RC Bhargava, Former Chairman, Maruti Udyog, says, "India will remain predominantly a small car market."

 

Maruti Udyog came out with their IPO in June 2003 and their share was oversubscribed 10 times, its offer price that time was 122-125 Rs per share and the stock is quoting above 700Rs per share today.