Mahindra & Mahindra, which recently announced a robust profit of Rs 856 crore for the first quarter (April-June 2021) of FY2022, has nearly 59,000 bookings for four products – the Thar, XUV300, Scorpio and Bolero. The commercial Bolero Pikup meanwhile attracted around 30,000 bookings taking overall bookings for all five models to around 90,000. However, due to the global shortage of semiconductors, production has been impacted leading to substantial waiting periods.

• Mahindra Thar has a 10 month waiting period
• Bolero, Scorpio, XUV300 have waiting periods between 1-2 months

Mahindra Thar waiting period

M&M currently has a 10-month waiting period for the new Thar, which was launched on October 2, 2020, and is one of M&M’s recent success stories. The company currently has over 39,000 bookings for the Thar, accounting for around 44 percent of the 90,000 bookings for five UVs. In early July, the company hiked the Thar’s prices by around Rs 32,000-Rs 92,000, depending on the variant, which translated to a 2-7 percent hike.

XUV300 gets over 10,000 bookings between April-June 2021

The XUV300, another popular SUV from the Mahindra portfolio, has over 10,000 bookings with a two-month waiting period. Launched in January 2019, the compact SUV is seeing sustained demand. In February 2021, M&M introduced a petrol-AMT option which was only offered on the diesel powertrains until then. The 1.2-litre, turbocharged petrol motor now gets the same convenience in the W6, W8 and W8 (O) variants of the SUV.

Bolero Neo garners over 5,500 bookings in first month

The Scorpio currently has over 6,000 bookings with a 45-day waiting period.  And the sturdy Bolero has over 4,000 bookings. On July 13, the company expanded the Bolero portfolio with the launch of the Bolero Neo at an introductory price of Rs 8,48,000 (ex-showroom, all India). In barely three weeks since launch, the Bolero Neo has got over 5,500 bookings.

The Bolero Pikup, thanks to the boom in e-commerce and demand for last-mile deliveries, has seen over 30,000 bookings in the first quarter of FY2022.

Dealing with commodity price rises and chip shortage

The unabated rise in commodity prices has seen most vehicle OEMs including M&M hike vehicle prices due to rising input costs. In the 16 months between March 2020 and June 2021, there has been a substantial increase in costs of base metals – HR steel (by 77 percent) and copper (by 86 percent) – and of precious metals – platinum (by 47 percent) and rhodium (by 86 percent). M&M is working to offset the commodity price rise by cost management and price increases.

When compared to FY2020, M&M produced a total of 1,65,881 vehicles (-14 percent), sold 1,57,215 units (-16 percent) in the domestic market and exported 6,732 units in FY2021. In Q1 of FY2022 (April-June 2021), the company produced a total of 49,118 units, sold 43,202 units in India and exported 2,496 units.

With no end in sight to the automotive industry’s woes with regards to the shortage of semiconductors, it is likely that production at M&M will continue to be impacted in the near future. In a statement yesterday, reflective of this situation, Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Director, M&M, said, “Commodity inflation and semiconductor supply issues continue to be of concern.”

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