Maruti may have to ramp up AMT production in 1-2 years

Maruti Suzuki's first automated manual transmission (AMT) equipped model was introduced back in 2014. Ever since, it has seen a steep rise in the sales of cars equipped with such transmissions. This growing popularity may soon force the carmaker to ramp up its AMT production. 

CV Raman, Senior Executive Director - Engineering, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has told the media that within 1-2 years, the company will have to increase its production capacity and may even have to shift the AMT production to a new plant.

According to a media report, in FY2015-16, AMT contributed to 3.5% of Maruti's total volumes, which doubled to 7.5% in FY2017-18. Latest figures suggest that out of the total number of Celerio hatchbacks sold, 40% are equipped with AMT. Besides this, sales of the AMT versions of the Ignis and Dzire have also picked up, constituting about 20% each. Apart from the aforementioned models, Maruti offers AMT on the Alto K10, Swift and Wagon R.

Maruti is believed to have sold over 1 lakh AMT cars already and is aiming to sell 1.5 lakh units in the automatic transmission segment in FY2018. By 2020, this figure is expected to rise to 3 lakh units. According to reports, the market for automatic transmission models is expected to rise from 4-5% in 2015-16 to 30% by the year 2020.

Source: The Economic Times