The Hindu Business Line : Maruti bucks trend with highest-ever car sales in Jan

Mumbai, Feb. 2 January marked a feather in the cap for the country’s top carmaker Maruti Suzuki which posted its highest ever monthly sales of 71,779 units. Its previous highest was in March 2007 when it sold 71,772 cars.

Maruti’s total sales in January grew 5.4 per cent over the same period last year. The domestic market accounted for 67,005 cars. What is remarkable is that the company showed a growth in monthly sales after a drop for the three preceding months. In December, for instance, sales totalled 56,293 units.

Maruti showed 124 per cent growth in midsize segment that includes SX4 and D’zire at 6,590 units while its volume driver hatchback segment A2 that includes Alto, Wagon R, Zen, Swift and A-Star almost touched 47,000 in January, mainly on the back of recently launched A-Star.

Closest rival Hyundai Motor India did not have as good a run though with a marginal drop at 37,216 units. It sold around 500 cars less than in January 2008 thanks largely to a 14 per cent slump in the domestic market. Exports grew 21 per cent to 16,200 units.

"As we had predicted, 2009 is going to be a challenging year for the entire automotive industry," said Mr Arvind Saxena, Senior Vice President, Hyundai Motor India.

He said the recently launched i20 had got a good market response. "We have bookings of over 2,500 units for the domestic market. In spite of the slowdown, we have shipped over 6,500 units of i20," he said.

Tata Motors reported nine per cent lower sales at 18,331 cars (compared to January last year) but twice as much from December’s volume at 9,838 units.

The company said the Indica range sales at 11,433 were the largest in the current fiscal.

Honda Siel Cars India sold close to 2,000 units less than what it had in the same month last year. However, on a month-on-month basis, sales improved from 3,667 units in December to 5,773 units in January.

Mahindra-Renault’s midsize car Logan sales shrunk to 597 against 2,301 in the same month last year.

In the two-wheeler segment, Hero Honda posted six per cent growth in January at 3.15 lakh units. It had showed a 10 per cent drop in volumes at 2.16 lakh units in December. The company said it would focus on its multi-focal strategy to expand market. It has 56 per cent domestic market share.

Bajaj Auto, in contrast, reported a 34 per cent drop in sales at 110,363 units. It had begun showing lower volumes from September. Sales in the preceding month, December, were 33 per cent down at 1,19,215 units.

TVS Motor Company showed flat sales at 93,729 units in January.

Turnaround in CV sales

In probably the first signal of a turnaround in commercial vehicle sales, Tata Motors, the country’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, has said that its sales in January were higher than in November and December, when sales fell by about 50 per cent. However, the January 2009 commercial vehicles at 17,307 units were still 43 per cent lower than January 2008 numbers. The medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales at 5,811 units, though 63 per cent lower than January 2008 figures, were the highest in the last three months, the company said.

According to a Tata Motors press release, the automobile market continues to be under the grips of a credit squeeze and higher interest rates. But, “faint signals of the impact of the financial stimulus announced by the Government, particularly for commercial vehicles, is being noticed.”