News Tonight

Maruti Suzuki India's overall vehicle sales during the last month dropped 25.3% year-on-year to 75,300 units primarily hurt by the shifting of production of its Swift Dzire sedan to its Gurgaon facility from Manesar and quitting fabrication of its Swift hatchback following the novel edition owing to be introduced shortly.

Maruti Suzuki stated that the company's domestic sales of dropped 26.2% to 66,504 units in the month of July and exports declined 18.1% to 8,796 units,.

During July, the fabrication of Swift Dzire was provisionally affected amidst transferring of its manufacturing from Manesar to Gurgaon.

"Therefore the sales numbers for Swift Dzire in the month are 5,471 units lower than in July 2010," it said.

Maruti Suzuki's workers in Manesar, where the Swift Dzire and SX4 were primarily made, had gone on a strike during June. This had hit fabrication of the two sedans for 10 days.

Dispatch of the previous Swift was also ceased in the last month as the novel Swift being made in the Manesar facility, will be rolled out countrywide in mid-August 2011.

"As such while the company dispatched 11,828 units of Swift in July 2010, the dispatch in July 2011 was only 348 units," Maruti Suzuki said.

That apart, the company also witnessed sales in its mini car section, which consists of Maruti 800, Alto, A-Star and Wagon R, dropped 15.6% in July 2011 to 38,028 units and Omni and Eeco van sales declined 1.7% 13,379 units.

The company's overall sales in the April-July period dropped 7.1% to around 3.57 lakh units.