Saturday April 02, 2011

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By Sam Devraj  ( Assistant Editor )

Market leader: Maruti cars in a stockyard

INDIA’S top car and motorbike makers reported strong sales in March and for the fiscal year, data showed on Friday (April 1), driven by a burgeoning, affluent middle class who bought new models.Car and bike sales have been on the rise as India recovers rapidly from the global downturn, with Japanese-owned Maruti Suzuki India reporting a 28.2 per cent year-on-year rise in March sales.Maruti’s total sales rose to 121,952 cars in March from 95,123 a year earlier, the company said, which dominates the Indian market with a 45-per cent share.The company said it sold 1.27 million vehicles during fiscal year 2010-11, a jump of 24.8 per cent over the previous year.In 2011, Maruti introduced the Suzuki Kizashi, India’s first luxury sports sedan after it had launched the new WagonR followed by a revamped version of its best-selling Alto car.Hero Honda, India’s largest motorbike maker, sold a record 515,852 units in March, a 24 per cent growth in the same period a year earlier.Hero Honda launched seven new models in the fiscal year, on sales of 5.4 million units.Other car makers like Volkswagen, Tata Motors and Nissan Motor also introduced new vehicles in the fiscal year which ended March.Ford India said it sold 98,537 units this fiscal, a jump of 166 per cent from a year earlier.Tata Motors, which owns British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover, saw flattish sales in passenger cars, at 29,543 in March 2011, against 29,867 a year earlier.Total sales (including exports) for the fiscal were at 803,322, a 25 per cent rise over sales last year, for the Tata group subsidiary.Sales of its flagship Nano, billed as the world’s cheapest car, jumped 85 per cent to 8,707.Nano car sales, which fell to a record low of 509 units in November, have recovered in the past four months, after the company introduced offers to boost flagging sales.Jaguar and Land Rover sales in India soared this fiscal, to 891 vehicles, a jump of 268 per cent, from 242 in the previous year, Tata Motors said.Sales of Tata’s domestic commercial vehicles - seen as a barometer of economic health - rose 15 per cent to 49,753, but analysts say industry sales could slacken on growing concerns about an industrial slowdown, due to aggressive monetary tightening.India will continue to sell more passenger cars and commercial vehicles in the new fiscal year, which started on Friday, but the pace of growth could moderate, analysts said, as cars and fuel get costlier.“First-time owners may defer buying a car for some time, due to high inflation,” said Mahantesh Sabarad, auto analyst with Mumbai-based Fortune Equity Brokers.India’s inflation rate remains stubbornly above eight per cent, which has led the country’s central bank to hike interest rates eight times in just over a year.India’s car makers have raised the prices of their vehicles recently to offset increased prices of steel and rubber components.Car sales for the fiscal year to March 31 are estimated to have grown by at least 25 per cent - far higher than an initial forecast of 12-13 per cent, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).With just one in 10 households in urban areas owning a car and one in 50 in rural areas, India remains an under-penetrated, alluring market, drawing global manufacturers from General Motors to Ford and Renault.

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