October car sales were little to write home about with the exceptions being Maruti, Hyundai and Honda. In the case of two-wheelers, market leader Hero was down eight per cent to 5.75 lakh units but was still comfortably ahead of is closest rival, Honda.

Industry watchers were taken aback by this tepid showing at a time the mood is more buoyant with a new Government in place. Further, fuel prices have been slashed which should have boosted market sentiment.

Maruti, whose sales were up a tad at 97,069 units, said it lost five working days due to the Haryana state elections and festival breaks. Hyundai’s new range comprising the Xcent, Grand i10 and Elite i20 continue to do well which pushed sales up five per cent to 38,010 units in October.

On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra reported a steep 15.7 per cent fall in sales to 40,274 units which seemed to indicate that market sentiment is still to improve. The Government’s extended excise duty break will be over by the end of next month. Will things get worse after that?

Nobody has a clue yet with a section of observers maintaining that October was an aberration. “Maruti launched the Ciaz and Alto automatic which are bound to do well. Hyundai is also creating a lot of excitement and so is Honda,” a marketing executive says. Other players such as Toyota, Nissan, Ford, M&M and Tata Motors have some catching up to do which can only happen with exciting new products.

Sentiment in the two-wheeler industry is distinctly better with Honda, Bajaj and TVS Motor reporting nearly 10 lakh units between them in October. While the Japanese automaker did 3.77 lakh two-wheelers, Bajaj notched up 3.36 lakh motorcycles and TVS 2.32 lakh units.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW