The country’s top most car maker Maruti and the second largest company in India, Hyundai get the coveted slots in the world Top 10. With Maruti notching the number 3 slot Hyundai secured 7th position. The ranking done by CSM Worldwide Inc (a forecasting firm) ranked Chinese two companies for 8th and 10th positions. Maruti’s production in Gurgaon plant during 2009 was 620000 cars while the Chennai unit of Hyundai secured 550000 cars. The Chinese company Chongqing Jiangbei plant delivered 525000 cars, since there is no full-fledged plant similar to Maruti’s.
Another factor that restrained the Chinese companies is the focus on large and medium-range cars which need just smaller units involving economy and profit. Other plants in the listing are Ford’s Tichy in Poland (6th slot), Suzuki Motor’s Kosai plant (5th ). However, Hyundai has the twin slots with its Ulsan plant (a capacity of 1.2 million cars a year) in South Korea on the top of the list. The rankings reflect the poor response from the buyers in 2009- the overall purchase globally was 50.91million cars indicating a fall by 2.4% from its 52.17 million cars in 2008. This had not affected the Indian market which saw the purchase of 1.2 million cars in 2009 indicating an increase by 12.5% to 1.05 million sold in 2008.
Maruti Suzuki’s production in Gurgaon plant during 2008 was 640000 cars when it secured 5th rank during that year. Hyundai could not get entry into the listing then. The industry analysts feel that Indian companies can still gain momentum in the listing when more cars will be manufactured in the years to come. Many big global players have set afoot in the Indian land by creating their plants for domestic and export markets.
Renault-Nissan JV has installed a capacity near Chennai to boost the production to 400000 cars per year. Ford Motor is looking India as an ideal hub for small cars and has installed a plant near Chennai facilitating the production of 200000 cars a year. All these companies chalk out their strategy to increase the capacity in their plants in a bid to ease the flow of components from the suppliers. The wide area of India needs such a ploy to meet the demand.
It was in this sense that Maruti installed its capacity near Manesar where the capacity is targeted to be 250000 per year. The component suppliers to the plants of Gurgaon and Manesar are placed in the territory close to them. The revamping of low end infrastructure also contributes to the expansion of plants by the companies. The devising of a car involves altogether 5 allied jobs resulting with the state governments offering assistance by way of land and tax exemptions.
Experts from economy feel that the companies are in the urge to make additional cars to meet the global economies including export. In future, the production may hit at 4-5 lakhs units and there would be a challenging task to manage these production units. The corresponding manufacturing for economies in Europe and the US is 250000 cars per year. This is a major reason that the top 10 list does not find any car units from the US.