(February 12, 2012) Suzuki's presence in the U.S. has faded into niche vehicle status, but it is number one in India. Maruti Suzuki announced last week the sale of its 10 millionth vehicle in the Indian domestic market and is the only car manufacturer to achieve this milestone in India.

The 10 millionth Suzuki, a red Swift, was delivered this week to a customer in Coimbatore from the company’s Manesar plant near New Delhi.

Maruti Suzuki retains a market share of around 50 per cent of passenger-light commercial vehicles sold across India and recently celebrated its 12th consecutive year of ranking first place in the J.D Power customer satisfaction awards.

Maruti Suzuki rolled out its first car in December 1983 and attained 5 million domestic sales in February 2006. To put the growth of the Indian car market into perspective, it has taken only a further six years to reach 10 million thanks to the success of the Swift and Wagon R as well as the fact that Alto has remained the most popular new car in India over the last seven years. All Alto models for the UK, Europe and other Global markets are exported from the Manesar plant.

2012 Suzuki Swift

To support the growth in new car sales and rapidly improving road infrastructure; Maruti Suzuki's goal is to establish the importance of developing more after-sales outlets in as many places as possible and in the longer term plans to have a service outlet every 25km. In 2010, sales volume reached 1.1 million units and is set to grow to over 1.7 million annually by 2013.

Maruti Suzuki currently has over 1,000 new car dealers and 2,992 service workshops in India, serving 1,406 Cities. Some of the larger City dealers maintain over 250 cars per day in their 50 bay service centers with the monthly service load across the network averaging one million cars.