Maruti Suzuki to engage with steelmakers on commodity price hike concerns

India’s biggest carmaker by volume, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, is planning to “engage” with the domestic steel industry on concerns related to the misuse of safeguard duty to increase prices. In December 2025, the government imposed a three-year safeguard duty of up to 12% on some steel imports to shield the domestic steel industry.

“It appears that the steel industry is using that opportunity to increase commodity prices. Though there was a clear message from the government that the steel industry should not use it to profiteer or raise commodity prices. But it appears there are some such pressures,” Rahul Bharti, Senior Executive Officer, Corporate Affairs, Maruti Suzuki, said in an earnings call with analysts after the company announced its third quarter results.

“We will engage with the steel industry and mention to them that the safeguard duty should not be misused to increase steel prices. It appears that there are some signals that they want to raise prices,” Bharti said.

This comes at a time when automakers are seeing adverse commodity prices due to the recent rally in aluminium and copper prices. Maruti Suzuki also witnessed an adverse impact due to rare earth supply constraints.

“We are seeing some headwinds in commodities. In terms of rare earth, instead of importing just the magnets, we were constrained to import larger aggregates or sub-assemblies of which magnets were child parts,” said Bharti. “This won’t be a long-term problem. Sooner or later, India will manufacture rare earth magnets,” he added.

On the historic India-EU free trade agreement, Bharti said he believes the government would have been extremely calibrated and sensitive to the domestic industry while making India participate in the global arena. “We have always supported liberalization. We export EVs to Europe. We don’t know the specific clauses. It should be positive,” he said.

As South Africa weighs steeper tariffs of up to 50% on ‘Made in India’ cars, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is looking to de-risk its exports. “We will try to derisk to the maximum possible. But still we are exposed to all kinds of global trade and tariff-related issues,” said Bharti.

“Export is always a mix bag. There are always some countries which take prominence, and there are always some changes happening. The top few countries always keep on changing. It’s a dynamic scenario. The best thing is we broad-base exports across our wide portfolio of countries, and we have 100-plus of them,” he explained.

Maruti Suzuki’s export revenue stood at Rs 8,200 crore in Q3 FY26. “We are on track to achieve export guidance of 4 lakh units in FY26,” said Bharti.

India’s top-selling carmaker saw a one-time provision on account of the new labour code, leading to higher employee costs. “The unfavourable factors were partially offset by favourable operating leverage, lower discounts and favourable product mix,” said Bharti.

After the GST rate cut in September last year, the carmaker is seeing robust demand across its portfolio. “There has been 7% increase in first-time buyers. We are seeing a lot of helmets in our showrooms, which means there are positive signs that a two-wheeler owner is upgrading to small and compact cars,” said Bharti.

The Japanese carmaker has no plans to hike prices soon. “The historic GST reform is an opportunity where we should build momentum. We always have time ahead of us where we can recover from cost pressures. It’s not ethical to have a price increase immediately after the government reduces taxes. Some manufacturers may be doing it, but we think we should make the decision in favour of the consumer,” said Bharti.

On the company’s capacity expansion plans, Bharti said Maruti Suzuki’s second plant at Kharkhoda, Haryana, will become operational by April 2026. “In a few months from there, the fourth line at Suzuki Motor Gujarat should become operational. We have 2 plants of 250,000 each capacity coming onstream in a very short timeframe,” he said.