Maruti Oct sales up 35%

While Maruti reported a 35.2 per cent growth in sales during the month, Hyundai said its sales were up 27.4 per cent as compared to October 2002.

Maruti sold 38,715 vehicles, including 5,260 units of exports, as compared to 28,630 in October 2002.

"The strike at our vendor, DCM Engineering, which supplies the bulk of our requirement of an important engine component, was called off during the month," a statement issued by Maruti here today said.

While the company's passenger car sales were up 25.2 per cent in the month, its multi-utility vehicle (Gypsy and Vitara) sales were down by 57.5 per cent. As a result, the growth in domestic sales was 24.2 per cent.

However, a robust export growth of 208.7 per cent from 1,704 in October 2002 to 5,260 in October 2003 led to an overall sales growth of 35.2 per cent.

Within passenger cars, the Maruti 800 sales rose by 7.3 per cent, Omni and Versa sales by 45.1 per cent and Alto, WagonR and Zen by 40.9 per cent, while Esteem, Baleno sales fell by six per cent.

Maruti sales for April-October rose 31.6 per cent from 190,940 in 2002 to 251,183 in 2003. In a statement, Hyndai India said its October car sales jumped 27.4 percent from a year ago to 13,297 vehicles helped by rising domestic demand.

While domestic sales rose 22.5 percent to 11,334 vehicles from 9,250, exports grew 65.4 percent to 1,963 units from 1,187 in October 2002.

The company said while October sales of the Santro compact car jumped 28.8 per cent from a year ago to 10,618 units, sales of the Accent sedan rose 24.6 per cent to 2,548 units and Sonata family car sales fell by 33 units to 117.

It sold only 14 Terracan sports utility vehicles, which it imports fully-built from South Korea, but said it had an order backlog of around 100.