New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki is not losing sleep over market share erosion, with its plants running at full capacity and demand outstripping supply, leaving the carmaker with a backlog of nearly 200,000 orders, chairman R.C. Bhargava said on Tuesday.
India’s biggest carmaker sold 2.4 million cars in FY26, up 8% year-on-year (y-o-y), with domestic sales rising 4% to 1.97 million units, and exports climbing 35% to nearly 450,000 units.
However, its market share in passenger vehicles (cars + SUVs) slipped to 39.2% in FY26 from 40.9% in FY25, according to data from Siam (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers).
Bhargava downplayed the decline while speaking to the media after the release of the company’s January-March quarter earnings.
“It is more important for a company to make sure that whatever manufacturing capacity it has installed, it is able to use that capacity to full 100% and sell those cars at a reasonable profit,” he said, adding that the company is currently held back by production constraints.
Maruti’s current capacity of 2.6 million units spread across four plants—Hansalpur in Gujarat; and Gurugram, Kharkhoda, and Manesar in Haryana—operated at near-full utilization in FY26.
“Our growth is now more or less determined by our ability to add capacity and, of course, we run at 100% (capacity utilisation),” Bhargava said during the media conference.
In the current financial year, the company is preparing to add 0.5 million units of production capacity, spread equally across its Kharkhoda and Hansalpur plants.
Bhargava’s comments follow strong revenue growth for the company, with consolidated FY26 revenues climbing 20% to ₹1.83 trillion, and Q4 revenues rising 25% to ₹52,946 crore.
Maruti Suzuki’s management believes the growth rate will continue as demand remains robust, even as it evaluates whether to increase prices owing to commodity costs going up.
To be sure, rising commodity and employee costs hit the company’s profitability—net profit grew at a flat 1% to ₹14,679 crore in FY26, and fell 6% y–o-y to ₹3,659 crore in Q4.
Analysts suggested that the company’s results were in line with expectations.
“Maruti Suzuki’s operating results were largely as expected, with minimal margin impact in the quarter. Management comments suggest a continued demand trajectory,” Mrunmayee Jogalekar, auto analyst at Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd, said. “Short-term raw material headwinds may have some impact, which may be partly mitigated by continued volume traction.”
However, were not impressed, with the company’s stock tumbling 2.5% on the NSE against a 1% decline in Nifty Auto.
Small cars back in focus
Bhargava also noted that the government has realized the importance of and the segment is likely to make a comeback now even as new regulations like corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) III come into effect in the next few years.
“I think the government has understood that affordability of small cars is a very real matter which they need to always keep in mind,” Bhargava said.
“I think in future, the kind of situation of this segment being hit in a manner which led to the sales dropping so drastically is not going to happen because the government realizes that that is bad for a large number of people,” he added.
From making up nearly half of the total market in 2019, share of small cars sank to about one-fifth of the market at the end of financial year 2026, as per Siam data.
Previously, the company had warned that stringent new regulations like Cafe-III norms can threaten the viability of small cars in the country if targets are not relaxed. While the final norms have not been notified yet, a draft circulated to industry earlier this month indicated that small cars will get lenient targets compared to previous drafts.
This comes as the company is preparing to meet the demand for its small car lineup. According to a company statement on Tuesday, of about 190,000 pending orders from customers at the end of FY26, 130,000 were for small cars belonging to the 18% GST slab as defined by the government.