M&M to halt production for up to 4 days in August

Utility vehicle firm Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) will stop production for up to four days this month across its automotive plants in the wake of weak demand.

Aligning production with sales requirements, the company would be observing no production days at the automotive plants for up to four days during the remaining period of August, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) said.

The company also said one of its wholly owned subsidiary-Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Ltd plant at Chakan-would also be observing no production days for up to four days during the remaining period of August.

M&M, which has manufacturing units at Chakan (near Pune), Nashik and Haridwar said its management "does not envisage any adverse impact on availability of vehicles in the market due to adequacy of vehicle stocks to serve the market requirements".

M&M saw its utility vehicles sales drop by 9.91 per cent to 14,348 units in July. During the month, it had produced 15,927 utility vehicles.

In the April-July period this fiscal, the company's utility vehicle sales were down 6.91 per cent to 66,528 units.

Its production was also down by 7.09 per cent to 71,212 units.

After a prolonged slump, domestic car sales grew for the third month in succession in July with a rise of 5.04 per cent, prompting industry body SIAM to hope for 5-10 per cent increase this fiscal.

According to the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), domestic passenger car sales stood at 1,37,873 units in July this year as compared to 1,31,257 units in the same month of 2013.