Following the surge in demand in the auto sector, Maruti Suzuki, India's top car manufacturer, is expanding its distribution network and plans to add 200 more dealerships.

Commenting on the same, company's Chief General Manager (Marketing), Shashank Srivastava, said that Maruti currently has 800-plus outlets spread over 500 cities and plans to increase this to 1,000 this financial year.

Meanwhile, the company is also betting big on the rural market.

Regarding this, Srivastava told "Last year, we did very good sales in rural areas, where the growth was very, very good. Nearly 17 per cent of our sales were in the rural segment against nine per cent in the previous year (2008-09)".

He also said "We have gained good ground in the rural market and we will continue on that,".

Meanwhile, Maruti Suzuki India reported a 28% increase in vehicle sales for May 2010.

As compared to 79,872 units a year ago, total sales rose by 27.9 % to 102,175 units in May, 2010.

This is the first time the car maker has seen sales over of a lakh in a month.

The previous highest figure in sales, however, was recorded in the month of February 2010.

Maruti had reported monthly sales of 96,650 units at the time. Moreover, growth for the car maker in the month of May has come in the A2, A3 and C segments respectively.

Maruti Suzuki yesterday closed at Rs.1356.45, up by 0.80% on BSE.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs.1364.9 till now, as against the 52-week high of Rs.1740.The stock hit a low of Rs.1340 during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs.995.3 on July 6, 2009.

The stock opens at Rs.1356 at BSE. The total traded volume of the scrip on BSE till now stood at 123738.

Meanwhile today, the BSE Sensex closed up by 142.87 points, or 0.84%, at 17064.95.

The NSE Nifty closed higher by 40.75 points, or 0.80%, at 5119.35.

Maruti Suzuki has an equity capital of Rs 144.46 crore as of 2010 March. The face value per share is Rs 5. At the current price of Rs 1356.45, the P/E multiple stood at 15.6929768246202 with book Value of 409.90 and P/BV at 3.31.

The total shareholding pattern of the company as on Dec 2009 stood at Promoters- 54.21%, Institutional Investors- 39.14%, General Public- 1.90% and other investors- 4.75%.

Considering the current price of Rs. 1356.45 at 4:03:00 PM, the stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 11/06/2010 surged 6.99% as compared to the Sensex's return of -0.76% and NSE Nifty's -0.72 % returns.

Considering the current price of Rs. 1356.45 at 4:03:00 PM, the stock had underperformed the market over the past one quarter till 11/06/2010 declined 6.2% as compared to the Sensex's return of -0.58% and NSE Nifty's -0.19 % returns.