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Since Kenichi Ayukawa took over as CEO and Managing Director of Maruti Suzuki Ltd on April 1, 2013, its share price has risen to Rs 5,240 per share (December 8) from around Rs 1,400 at the time, its annual profit has nearly doubled to Rs 4,571 crore in 2015/16 from Rs 2,392 crore in 2012/13, while its market share has gone up by a spectacular 10 percentage points to touch 48 per cent.

Ayukawa wants to increase production from the current 1.5 million vehicles annually to 2.5 million, in effect accounting for a third of Suzuki's global production. The company's third plant, coming up at Hansalpur, Gujarat, will have an initial capacity of 250,000 units. "Ultimately, we plan to make around 1.5 million units annually in Hansalpur alone, but that will take some time as the Indian market grows," says Ayukawa. He expects the SUV segment to strengthen rapidly, while forever remaining alert to the growing competition even in the hatchback segment - where Maruti has long ruled - from the likes of Renault's Kwid. "We have to prepare and align a product to overcome the challenge from Kwid and other new generational products," he says. "We have to compete. But this is the situation in every industry. We have to surprise our customers with new offerings - innovations in design, in performance, price, shape and size of our vehicles."

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He continues to exhort his Indian engineers to focus on products that can compete globally. "Maruti is No. 1 in India, but Suzuki is not in the same position globally," he says. "If we can raise our quality standards to compete with the best in the world, we will be strong players in the passenger vehicle segment around the world." He has already outlined the new areas for them. Hybrids and electric vehicles will be a major focus with the former going beyond the 'mild hybrids' to those which can go fully electric if required. Crisper designs to attract buyers are also in the making.

Maruti's stature in the automobile market can be gauged from the fact that, at any time, seven of its models are in the top 10 bestselling car list. The demand is so high that the parent Suzuki Motor has advanced completion of the Hansalpur plant by six months to January 2017 to provide the Baleno hatchback to Indian customers. Maruti is so starved of capacity that almost half its portfolio is on the waiting list in some part of the country or other.

Ayukawa is supremely confident of touching the 2-million sales mark by 2020 or even going higher. More than 15 new Maruti models are scheduled to hit the market by then.

Despite its large base, Maruti remains among the fastest growing auto manufacturers in the country even as it matches global peers on high acceptance amongst Indian customers. The company perennially tops the JD Power auto surveys. "Maruti is always a yard ahead of its competitors who have failed to imitate it on product life cycle and customer aspirations," says Wilfried Aulbur, head of auto consultancy firm Roland Bergers Asia Automotive Practice. "It does not just make smart mobility like the hugely successful mild-hybrid in the Ciaz sedan, but also trims cost, which makes it stand out among carmakers."

@sablaik