No stock of Swift, DZire; bookings to continue: Maruti

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Maruti Suzuki India on Wednesday said it has run out of stock of the two best selling models, Swift and DZire, which are produced at the Manesar plant where it has declared lockout following violence last week.

The company has, however, ruled out stopping bookings for these models.

"We do not have any stock of Swift and DZire at our factory. About 10,000 cars of both the models are on transit and that is the inventory at present," Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Chief Operating Officer (Marketing and Sales) Mayank Pareek said.

When asked if MSI would stop taking orders for these models, he said: "Our booking is going on and we will not stop it. We have informed the dealers and customers about the situation.

"We tell the customers that this is the current situation (about the production at Manesar) and if even after that, they want to book the car, then it shows the strength of the two brands."

Pareek was confident that customers will remain loyal to the company. "During the strikes in last year also, we did not stop booking. Our rivals are still offering discounts to attract customers, but we are receiving huge response to our cars without any scheme even in our crisis period."

He said at present Swift has a booking order of 55,000 units, while DZire has 65,000 bookings. Out of these, 80 per cent are for the diesel variants. There is no order backlog for SX4 and A-Star models, which are also produced at the Manesar plant.

Asked how long could it take to clear the backlog, Pareek said: "Assuming that production starts on Wednesday, it will take us 4-6 months to clear the backlog depending upon the variants."