Maruti Suzuki to invest $5.5 bn by 2030 to double its capacity in India

Maruti Suzuki will invest over $5.5 billion in India and double its production capacity to four million vehicles a year by 2030, a report by The Economic Times (ET) said on Friday. This will be done to increase exports and enhance the company's local market share.

The automaker will invest Rs 45,000 crore to start eight assembly lines with an annual production capacity of 250,000 units each across two new facilities, the report added. The construction of a new unit in Haryana's Kharkhoda has already started.

The company has reportedly received approval to add a capacity of up to one million units in Kharkhoda. It has also received in-principal approval for another one million units at a new site. The location of this new site is yet to be finalised.

Currently, Maruti Suzuki has a total installed capacity of two million units across Haryana's Gurgaon and Mahesar, and Gujarat's Mehsana.

"Looking at future demand, the likely market size in the next eight years, we would need to set up an additional production capacity of one million units," the company's chairman RC Bhargava was quoted as saying in the report.

In April, the company's total vehicle sales jumped 6.5 per cent to 160,529 units in April 2023 from 150,661 units in April 2022. In a release, the company said that the shortage of electronic components had some impact on the production of vehicles.

In a recent report, news agency Reuters said that the company expects the chip shortage to recover in the second quarter of the current financial year.

"Chip shortage will continue in Q1 but we are expecting some recovery in Q2, although visibility on semiconductor supply remains limited," Shashank Srivastava, senior executive, of marketing and sales, was quoted as saying in the report.