Wednesday, May 02, 2012
By Manoj Kumawat
Car sales in India go gaga in April despite of spoilsport by car price hike
The budget blues seem to have dampened the sales in India but not to that extent as expected. As per the latest sales figures of April this year, car makers have posted growth but a little lukewarm one. Mahindra India has registered a growth of 27 percent primarily due to the Mahindra XUV 500 and the new Mahindra Xylo. Indian car market leader Maruti Suzuki posted a net growth of 3.4 percent and sold over 1 lakh units in the domestic market. Maruti Alto is the winner and Maruti Ertiga too has performed pretty well.
Maruti car exports also rose by meager 1.5 percent in April as compared to the same period last year. Maruti A Star remained the car that was exported in maximum numbers. Meanwhile, Toyota India following the unprecedented increase in sales of Toyota Etios sedan and Toyota Etios Liva hatchback has clocked a growth of 49 percent in sales in April as compared to the same period last year. Toyota Fortuner and Toyota Innova also contributed to the overall sales of 14,378 units in April this year.
It is Toyota and Honda cars that are able to sustain more than 40 percent sales growth even after an overall lukewarm response in the Indian car market. Meanwhile, Honda cars posted a total growth of 252 percent over the same period last year. However, experts suggest that April 2011 comparing sales this year with April 2011 will be unjust as Honda suffered production outage at that time. Honda sold a total of 7,075 units of cars including Honda Brio small car, Honda City and Honda Civic besides its SUV Honda CRV and others in April this year. It was homegrown car maker Tata that has posted a net decrease in sales the winding month. Tata Motors suffered a loss of seven percent in overall sales in April compared to the same period last year.
