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Vishnu Mathur, director general, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), said, “The industry is seeing a gradual increase and even the cumulative numbers are seeing improvements month-on-month...We can see a slow turnaround happening.”
A process of economic recovery has set in, he said, and this was having a positive impact on overall sales. Launches of new models such as the Honda Mobilio and Hyundai Elite i20 also helped raise sales during the month. In August, sales of passenger cars went up by 15.2 per cent to 153,758 units.
Though total CV sales were down 5.6 per cent to 48,473 units from 51,344 units in the year-ago period, Siam said signs of recovery were visible in the segment. Sugato Sen, its deputy director-general, said: “MHCV sales were positive in June and July as well but the growth was in low single digits. Last month, it increased by a strong 9.6 per cent after 29 months. This has largely been driven by goods carriers and we are hopeful sales will pick up. There are signs of a very slow but steady recovery in the segment.”
In the PV segment, the sales tally was led by Maruti Suzuki, which clocked growth of 29.3 per cent to sell 98,304 units in the home market last month. Korean auto major Hyundai grew volumes by 19.2 per cent to 33,750 units in the month. Meanwhile, new launches helped boost numbers for Honda Cars India by 88 per cent to 16,758 units.
Home-grown Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), with no new vehicle launches, continued to see sluggish demand. While Tata Motors’ sales fell 25.5 per cent to 13,397 units, M&M’s was down 15.5 per cent to 15,321 units.
In the two-wheeler segment, total sales in August grew 19.2 per cent to 1,345,506 units from 1,128,631 units in the year-ago period. Sales of scooters went up 30.4 per cent to 369,323 units and of motorcycles by 14.5 per cent to 910,312 units from 795,411 units in the same month last year. Total sales across categories grew 17.5 per cent to 1,660,437 units in August as against 1,412,602 units in the year-ago period.
