India’s largest automaker by volume, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, plans to “dialogue” with the domestic steel industry over concerns over the misuse of safeguard duties to increase prices. In December 2025, the government imposed a three-year safeguard duty of up to 12% on certain steel imports to protect the domestic steel industry.
“It seems that the steel industry is using this opportunity to increase the prices of raw materials. Although there has been a clear message from the government that the steel industry should not use it to make profits or increase prices of raw materials. But it seems that there are such pressures,” Rahul Bharti, managing director of corporate affairs at Maruti Suzuki, said in a conference call with analysts after the company announced its third quarter results.
“We will engage with the steel industry and mention to them that safeguard duties should not be misused to increase steel prices. There seem to be some signals that they want to increase prices,” Bharti said.
This comes at a time when automakers are seeing lower raw material prices due to the recent rise in aluminum and copper prices. Maruti Suzuki has also witnessed a negative impact due to rare earth supply constraints.
“We are seeing headwinds in the raw materials sector. When it comes to rare earths, instead of importing just the magnets, we were forced to import larger aggregates or subassemblies of which the magnets were individual parts,” Bharti said. “It will not be a problem in the long run. Sooner or later, India will make rare earth magnets,” he added.
On the historic free trade agreement between India and the EU, Bharti said he believed the government would have been extremely calibrated and sensitive to the domestic industry while bringing India into the global arena. “We have always supported liberalization. We export electric vehicles to Europe. We do not know the specific clauses. This should be positive,” he said.
As South Africa imposes higher customs duties of up to 50% on ‘made in India’ cars, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is seeking to de-risk its exports. “We will try to minimize the risks as much as possible. But we still remain exposed to all kinds of problems related to global trade and tariffs,” Bharti said.
“Exporting is always a mix. There are always some countries that are growing in importance, and there are always changes happening. The top few countries keep changing. It’s a dynamic scenario. The best thing is that we are expanding our exports across our wide portfolio of countries, and we have more than 100 of them,” he explained.
Maruti Suzuki’s export revenue stood at Rs 8,200 crore in the third quarter of FY26. “We are on track to achieve the export targets of 4 lakh units in FY26,” Bharti said.
India’s top-selling automaker saw a one-time provision due to the new labor code, leading to higher personnel costs. “Adverse factors were partially offset by favorable operating leverage, lower discounts and favorable product mix,” Bharti said.
After the reduction in GST rate in September last year, the automaker is seeing strong demand across its portfolio. “There has been a 7% increase in first-time buyers. We are seeing a lot of helmets in our showrooms, which means there are positive signs of a two-wheeler owner moving to small and compact cars,” Bharti said.
The Japanese automaker has no immediate plans to raise prices. “The historic GST reform is an opportunity where we should create momentum. We still have time ahead to recover from the cost pressure. It is not ethical to have a price increase immediately after the government has reduced taxes. Some manufacturers may be doing this, but we believe we should take the decision in favor of the consumer,” Bharti said.
On the company’s capacity expansion plans, Bharti said Maruti Suzuki’s second plant in Kharkhoda, Haryana, will become operational by April 2026. “In a few months, the fourth line of Suzuki Motor Gujarat is expected to become operational. We have 2 plants with a capacity of 250,000 each which will be commissioned within a very short time,” he said.
