Maruti Suzuki Managing Director Hisashi Takeuchi said, India is already the third largest automobile market in the world. Given the potential in the market, it is important to realign business to grow in a sustainable and environment-friendly manner going ahead.
“Going ahead, it is estimated that, by FY 30-31, the annual passenger vehicle market size will expand to 6 to 7 million units. Besides, we are optimistic about the growth potential of the export market. This means the scale of operations will nearly double from the present levels,” Takeuchi said.
He added businesses will therefore need to be ‘reviewed and re-aligned’ to the new and much higher scale of operations which will spread across multiple locations. “At the same time, we need to find ways to make our operations sustainable and environmentally friendly,” he noted.
As many as 3.89 million passenger cars, sedans and utility vehicles were sold in the country in the last financial year. Takeuchi said two major announcements made at the G20 Summit – the biofuel alliance and the announcement of a mega India-Middle East-Europe shipping and railway connectivity corridor will have consequences of great importance to all industries, and specifically to the automobile industry. “The alliance in the biofuels area is of the highest importance in our efforts to lower emissions. The mega connectivity corridor will open a range of opportunities for India,” he informed. Takeuchi said given the Indian market is so diverse, stakeholders in the automobile industry need to work on a range of powertrain technologies like ethanol, flex-fuel, CNG, Bio- CNG, hybrid electric, electric and hydrogen to reduce vehicular emissions and crude imports and grow sustainably.
Globally too, he said one can see developments around sustainability, and these are leading to adoption of new technologies and fuels. Takeuchi said, “This presents a big opportunity especially for the Indian auto component manufacturers to diversify and grow business. To leverage the opportunity and simultaneously increase competitiveness greater focus on capacity and capability is required.” Investments would accordingly have to be made to research and develop futuristic technologies, skilled manpower and strengthen risk management capabilities.