Maruti drags down passenger vehicle sales in January

Largest player sees flat growth

The first month of 2016 started on a weak note for car makers. After months of high single/double digit growth, sales of passenger vehicles — cars, utility vehicles and vans — grew by a low single digit two per cent in January, pulled down by a flat performance by Maruti Suzuki, which has a 47 per cent market share. The industry’s April-December sales growth stood at a high 9 per cent.

Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest car maker, reported a low single digit growth of 0.8 per cent in domestic sales in January. The company’s sales had grown 14 per cent in the April-December period. The low January sales have pulled down the April-January growth to 12.4 per cent.

Maruti sold 106,383 units in the domestic market last month. The company attributed the decline to lesser number of working days in the month on account of holidays. “Whatever was produced in January has been dispatched,” said a spokesperson. In December, sales had grown 13.5 per cent. Reacting to the sales data, the company’s stock at the BSE slipped 3.68 per cent to close at Rs 3,946.80 on Monday.

The second largest player, Hyundai, was able to hold fort, posting a growth of 9.3 per cent in January. The company sold 38,016 units in the domestic market. “The growth momentum of last year continued on account of strong performance of products like Grand, Creta and i20 Elite/Active,” said Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president (sales and marketing).

Mahindra & Mahindra made a strong comeback after the diesel vehicle (2,000cc and above) sale ban in Delhi and the national capital region, imposed by the Supreme Court in mid December. The ban is in place till March 31. The company saw a growth of 13 per cent in the month, helped by sales of TUV300 and the recently launched KUV100. Last month, it launched a 1,990cc engine to power Scorpio and XUV500 as sales of these vehicles had come to a halt in Delhi NCR following the ban that was imposed to control pollution.

Volkswagen saw an increase in sales after four consecutive months of decline, beginning September when the company came under attack due to global diesel emission scandal. The German car maker’s January sales grew 7.61 per cent. Ford continued the growth path helped by the launch of Figo and Figo Aspire last year. Its sales grew 6 per cent last month. Japanese car maker Toyota continued to see a decline in sales. Its January sales declined by a steep 33 per cent. N Raja, director and senior vice president (sales and marketing) said, “Our monthly sales have been affected and part of it is a repercussion of the recent ban on registration of diesel vehicles in Delhi and NCR.”

The region accounted for 1,000 units of Innova and Fortuner a month.  Tata Motors saw another month of decline in January, with a near 18 per cent cut.

Honda also saw a decline of 6.5 per cent last month.

French car-maker Renault saw a sharp jump of 150 per cent in sales, riding on the demand for its new hatchback Kwid. The company has seen 90,000 bookings for the vehicle that was launched last September.