The decline in sales of its various models in July has prompted India's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki, to enhance its product basket by launching new cars; invest in infrastructure; and in creating marketing and sales infrastructure in tier -3 towns.

Though the company officials maintain that the decline in July sales was not to worry about and was mainly because of negative market sentiment, Maruti is now going all out to ensure that it retains its market position in the passenger car segment, when the total car market in India crosses four million units in 2015.

Talking to reporters, Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer, marketing and sales, Maruti Suzuki, said the company was planning to increase its product basket and have a presence in all segments of cars, besides creating new segments. "We already have 14 models in our product portfolio, and will continue to add more models. A new version of Swift will be launched later this month, and this year, we will continue to have a mixed bag of new launches and strengthening our existing portfolio," he said.

Though he refused to comment on the launch of a new 800 cc car, market analysts say the car maker is expected to launch a new small car soon, which will be priced at around Rs. 200,000 (US$ 4,400).

Pareek also informed that the company will be investing Rs. 60 billion in creating two new assembly lines at Manesar, besides setting up a research and development centre and a testing track at Rohtak.

"The two new assembly lines are being set up, which will help us increase our production capacity from the present 1.20 million units per annum to 1.75 million units per annum. One of these assembly lines will get into commercial production by the end of this year. The R&D centre and testing track will be commissioned by 2013-2014," he said.

He also said they had increased the production capacity of Swift from 10,000 units per month to 16,000 units per month, by shifting production of Dzire from Manesar to Gurgaon.

He also said the company was investing in recruiting manpower to increase its engineering capability and was working on increasing its marketing and sales infrastructure by opening stockyards and increasing its dealerships so as to have dealerships in all towns having a population of over 50,000 by year 2014-15.