Tata Engineering's commercial vehicle sales in March have dropped 9.1 per cent, largely due to a 20.69 per cent fall in the sales of its light commercial vehicles.However, cumulative sales during the month improved 10 per cent due to the record sales of Indica, which was released earlier by the company.While sales of the company's mainstay, medium & heavy commercial vehicles, saw a small decline of 3.03 per cent to 7,921 units from 8,169 units sold in March 2001, LCV sales fell to 3,452 units from 4,353 units in the same month last year, according to figures released by the company.In terms of overall sales across all its product categories, Tata Engineering performance in LCV segment saw the sharpest slide, with a 20.5 per cent decline. Cumulative LCV sales during 2001-02 stood at 25,855 units against 32,549 units in the previous fiscal.This was largely due to the company losing sales to M&M's range of pick-up trucks and Piaggio Vehicles' range of load-carrier three-wheelers.However, cumulative sales of the company's M&HCV sales for the fiscal 2001-02 were up 8.5 per cent, at 56,713 units, against 52,365 units sold during 2000-01. This was due to a partial recovery in the segment, although total sales in the category are considerably lower than that of around 70,000 units sold during 1999-2000. The highlight for the fiscal was the improved performance of the Indica, which registered a 46 per cent annual growth, at 64,035 units, after a dismal performance during 2000-01.However, in the utility vehicle segment, the company's annual sales, at 24,827 units, were lower by 11 per cent over sales during 2000-01.The UV industry declined by 5.5 per cent during the fiscal, largely due to sharp decline in sales of Toyota Kirloskar's Qualis during January and February.However, Tata Engineering's average sales during the last quarter stood at around 2,700 units a month, much higher than the average sales of around 1,850 units per month during the first three quarters.
