Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is planning to boost output of its recently launched TUV300 sport utility vehicle (SUV), reports the Economic Times. According to the report, the automaker has informed its suppliers of increased component requirements in the coming three months. The automaker is likely to expand monthly production to 5,500-6,000 units until February 2016. M&M has received more than 15,500 orders for the vehicle so far, with 40-45% of these for the model with automated manual transmission (AMT). "TUV300 continues to have a good pull in the market. We saw a good rush during [the] festive season and the demand is sustaining, so we are ramping up the capacity. We had provisioned for 5,000 units a month; by adding more people we should be able to take up the capacity to 5,500 to 6,000 units, it is a work in progress," the report quotes M&M's automotive chief executive Pravin Shah as saying.
Significance: M&M launched the compact SUV in September in a bid to stem its losses in the SUV segment following the inroads made by Renault, Nissan, and Ford in recent years. The automaker started producing the nameplate with a monthly output of 4,000 units but stated it had the capacity to expand production should it need to do so. The nameplate played a crucial role in pushing M&M's monthly volumes into growth territory during October, although the automaker's passenger vehicle sales for the first 10 months of 2015 were still down 6% year on year (y/y). As a result, the TUV300 is a very important model for M&M and the plan to expand production indicates its efforts to capture initial demand.
