Indian carmaker Maruti may hike output by 75pc

India's biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki aims to boost output by up to 75 percent as it seeks to maintain its dominant position in the fast-growing domestic market, a report said Thursday.

"Depending on how the car market performs, we would like to like to reach 1.5 to 1.75 million units a year by 2015," the Economic Times quoted Maruti managing director Shinzo Nakanishi as saying.

"That should help us keep the 50 percent share of the market we now have because the total car industry will, by then, be around three million units (per year)," Nakanishi said.

He said the board of Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp, which holds a majority stake in Maruti, would give final approval in January on whether to implement the plan.

Nakanishi gave no estimate of the cost of the increase but the newspaper quoted an unnamed Mumbai analyst as saying the company would need to make an investment of up to one billion dollars to increase capacity by 750,000 units.

Maruti Suzuki currently has the capacity to produce one million cars a year.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor is Maruti's nearest rival with a 21 percent market share.