Indian car sales rise 41.4% in November

Monday, 15 December 2003, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India's booming car market posted a 41.4 percent sales growth last month 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 November touched 58,166 units, up from 41,146 logged in the same period in 2002, said the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Cumulative sales in the April-November period posted a growth of nearly 26 percent to 433,840 units, said the industry association. Ford India Limited, the local arm of the US-based automobile giant, witnessed a whopping sales growth of 94.4 percent in November to 1,598 units, compared to 822 cars sold in November 2002. Sales of Maruti Udyog Limited, India's largest carmaker, jumped 45.4 percent to 31,044 units. Maruti, a unit of Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Corporation, 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 44.5 percent to 8,304 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 20.3 percent to 11,056 units, showed the SIAM figures. According to the association, sales of commercial vehicles, a key barometer of the country's economic health, rose 54.1 percent in November to 21,860 units, up from 14,183 in the same month last year. Sales of two-wheelers posted a moderate growth of 5.8 percent to 480,054 units, said SIAM.
Source: IANS
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