The country’s largest carmaker Maruti-Suzuki announced their annual financial results earlier today after a torrid few months. The company sold 1,563,297 vehicles globally including 1,461,126 vehicles in the domestic market, registering a decline of 16.1 per cent and 16.7 per cent respectively. Net sales stood at Rs 17,690 crore down 13.7 percent and net profits were down to Rs 5650.6 crore a decline of 24.7 per cent which was driven by lower sales and higher marketing costs even though the Government’s announcement of a lower corporate tax rate was beneficial to the company.
All tis led to the company deciding to conserve more cash and give out a dividend of Rs 60 per share.
The Maruti scrip ended the day at exactly Rs 5,000 up by 0.98 per cent for the day, but far below the gains the scrip had shown earlier in the day.
Speaking to journalists over a video-conference, RC Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti-Suzuki said that the company has not taken any decisions on what to do with their cash but is supporting vendors and dealers wherever necessary.
He also said that production had been restarted at the company’s Manesar and Gurugram facilities to a limited extent.
But believed that it would take time for the company to ramp up production and also hinted that the labour shortage might impact some of the company’s smaller suppliers.
He also said that Maruti-Suzuki has opened several hundred showrooms across the country, albeit mainly in
rural areas as well as over 1,900 workshops in the last few days. With most bookings coming through online channels the company even said that they have received over 5,000 bookings and have delivered 1,700 cars ever since the nationwide lockdown began to be eased.