One out of every three cars sold by us was powered by CNG: Maruti Suzuki

One out of every three car models sold by the country’s biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki was powered by CNG, top executives of the company said in post-earnings call on Wednesday. According to Rahul Bharti, Executive Director, Corporate Communications, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, this is the first quarter where CNG sales outpaced diesel across the passenger vehicles segment. The company sold slightly less than 150,000 CNG vehicles in Q1, according to Bharti.

“Today, one out of every three cars sold in India, sold by Maruti Suzuki is CNG. The other very interesting trend is that in India CNG has overtaken diesel for the first time in this quarter. There are many new geographies, small states which are contributing very less, but which have become quite active (in terms of CNG), which is growing at a very healthy rate. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar, have started coming up on CNG, though from a small base. So, that’s a positive and it’s good for all because it avoids oil import, reduces CO2, and it’s economical for the customers also, it’s not seen as a low cost solution any longer very premium models have CNG,” said Bharti.

Maruti Suzuki currently leads the CNG market with a 35-40% market share. By the end of this fiscal year, it aims to add 600,000 CNG units in its portfolio.

The manufacturer of WagonR posted a 47% increase in the net profit to Rs 3,649.9 crore in the first quarter of FY25, as against Rs 2,485.1 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. The automobile manufacturer's net sales witnessed a 9.82% uptick at Rs 33,875.3 crore, as against Rs 30,845.2 crore in the same period last year. Notably, SUVs (sports utility vehicles) accounted for 45% of the total sales in Q1. The company expects SUV sales to be 60% of the total sales by the end of this fiscal year.

“Our expectation is that this upward trend may continue for a while. But the 50% may go up to say 55-60%. And on top of that, there are MPVs also in our future product plans. We have to appropriately address this market segmentation. And one aspect that we have taken care of, for the next five, six years we have made our production lines flexible. So that any segment changes shape, we are able to be agile to the market,” said Bharti.

Notably, the company will be unveiling its first electric vehicle at the Bharat Mobility Show in January next year. The company will be launching one EV model every year.

Meanwhile, the company remains optimistic for hybrid vehicles. “It's a very potent, powerful technology. It is nationally very beneficial, because without the challenge of charging infrastructure costs, customers can widely adopt it. It is scalable. And it gives you a 35-45% fuel efficiency improvement, it gives you a 25 to 30% co2 improvement. So both the national objectives of co2 reduction and oil import reduction are strongly met by this. And it seeks to convert pure petrol diesel engine cars into hybrid cars. So we are optimistic about this technology. And of course, along the line, I would believe all of the stakeholders would also see this,” said Bharti.