Maruti Suzuki has just gone past the 2 crore car production mark. The best selling Vitara Brezza sub-4 meter compact SUV was Maruti’s car number 2 crore. This massive number has come up 34 years-and-a-half years after Maruti Suzuki started producing cars at Gurgaon. The first car was the Suzuki SS80, which later became the Maruti 800. It was rolled out from the Gurgaon production unit in December 1983, and was flagged off by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Harpal Singh, the first owner of the Maruti 800 built in India was chosen through a lucky draw and the man continued to use his car for over 30 years, until his recent demise. Such was the reliability and longevity of the Maruti 800 that it put a few generations of Indians on four wheels.
Coming back to the momentous production landmark for Maruti Suzuki, managing director of the automaker Kenichi Ayukawa had this to say,
“We would like to thank all our valued customers, business partners, Government, investors and all stakeholders. The 20 million production milestone is a testimony of trust in brand Maruti Suzuki. For over three decades, Maruti Suzuki has worked to listen and meet the evolving customer aspirations with contemporary products of global quality. We are committed to serve customers with products and services, which are best in quality, safety and ahead in technology.”
Maruti Suzuki is India’s largest automaker, and with the latest production numbers is easily the biggest car maker that the country has seen by a massive margin. Sales for Maruti Suzuki has been on a constant upswing, mirroring the growing Indian economy. In fact, Maruti Suzuki is now Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corporation’s most valuable global asset, and actually brings in the biggest revenues and profits for the automaker.
While the first five million cars took Maruti over 21 years to build and sell, the next five million came up in just six years time. Subsequent five million landmarks have come up in 50 months and 38 months respectively, which means that Maruti Suzuki is now building and selling cars faster than ever before. In fact, the automaker wants to sell 2 million cars each year by 2020. Current production stands at 17.5 million cars/year, spread across 3 factories.
