A global level deal between Suzuki and Toyota will need local subsidiaries of each, to work in tandem. But that seems not to be happening, as reported by The Hindu Business Line.
The newspaper report claims that both, Maruti Suzuki India, as well as Toyota India want to claim sales of Glanza, which is a rebadged Maruti Baleno. The interesting part is, the car is manufactured by Suzuki Motor India, at their plant in Gujarat. This plant is not under Maruti Suzuki India.
Suzuki Motor India is independent of Maruti Suzuki as well as Toyota Kirloskar Motor. Suzuki Motor manufactures the Baleno, and sells it to Maruti, which is then dispatched to Maruti dealers across India. In the case of Glanza, Suzuki will manufacture the Glanza and will dispatch it to Toyota dealers across India.
Logically, one would assume that sales of Glanza will be considered as that of Toyota India sales. But Maruti does not agree. As per the report in HBL, Maruti Suzuki Chairman has said, “We will show the cars sold to Toyota as a wholesale number and will report that accordingly in our monthly sales.” He said that till the time reporting of numbers to SIAM is in wholesale numbers, we will report the number of cars supplied to TKM as Maruti’s wholesale number.”
In response Toyota India said, “Maruti cannot count the Glanza sales as wholesale numbers because we will do that. It will be billed to dealers and then to the customers. We will report them as wholesale numbers every month.”
Industry body, SIAM said, “We (SIAM) will make sure double counting does not happen between Maruti Suzuki India and TKM when they sell their cross-badged cars.” But it is more or less clear on whose side they are on. “Toyota cannot report the wholesale number of a car that Maruti Suzuki has sold to them and reported as the wholesale number,” added SIAM.