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Indian car sales in fast lane, rise 31 percent
Friday, 13 February 2004, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: India's booming car market posted a 31 percent sales growth in January over the same period in the previous year as buyers rushed to take advantage of sharply lower loan interest rates, figures showed Friday.
The total number of passenger cars sold in January touched 71,875 units, up from 54,813 logged in the same period in 2003, said the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
Cumulative sales in the April-January period posted a growth of 27.4 percent to 555,904 units, said the industry association.
Sales of Maruti Udyog Ltd, India's largest carmaker, jumped nearly 36 percent to 38,140 units. Maruti, a unit of Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Corp, sells a dozen car models in the domestic market.
Tata Motors, the automobile manufacturing arm of India's diversified business conglomerate Tata Sons, saw its sales rising 11.5 percent to 11,084 units, mainly due to increased buying of its popular hatchback Indica.
Sales of the Indian arm of the South Korean automobile major Hyundai Motor too registered a significant growth of 24.4 percent to 12,546 units.
India's car market has come a long way in recent years. From the economically priced Maruti-Suzuki 800 compact cars to the Maybach, the new car craze in India is unmistakable.
Experts say car sales in India would touch 700,000 units in the fiscal year ending March 31, a growth of nearly 30 percent over the previous year as the benefits of an economic boom percolates down to all segments of society.
India is set to be one of the fastest-growing economies this year, perhaps surpassed only by China. India's Oct-Dec gross domestic product increased 8.4 percent from its previous year's level.
The National Council of Applied Economic Research, a New Delhi-based economic research group, predicted in September that car sales would rise to one million vehicles a year by 2012.
And to take a larger share of the pie in the growing market, local and overseas carmakers are vying with one another to roll out new models notwithstanding ubiquitous traffic snarls and potholes.
According to SIAM, sales of commercial vehicles, a key barometer of the country's economic health, rose 35.6 percent in January over the same month in 2003 to 25,141 units.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS