Pre-Budget blues: Maruti sales up 1.5% in February

Passenger car market leader Maruti Uydog Ltd reported a modest growth in domestic sales of 1.49 per cent during February 2005. The lacklustre sales was attributed to consumers postponing purchases in expectation of an excise duty cut in the Union Budget 2005-06.

This resulted in total domestic sales falling to 39,826 units in February 2005, against 39241 units in February 2004. Export sales however reported a better performance of 3777 units in February 2005, a growth of 25 per cent over the 3022 units exported in February 2004.

The 'mixed-bag' performance in February sales also saw the 'new look' Maruti 800 not attracting car buyers. Even after more than a full month of its launch, India's only entry level (A segment) car, Maruti 800 reported a slide in sales of a whooping 41 per cent over the number of units sold in February 2004.

The rest of the company's product portfolio reported sales growth in the range of 14 per cent (Omni, Versa) to 132 per cent (MUVs Gypsy, Vitara). Maruti Udyog's, Alto, WagonR and Zen, cash cows continued to enthuse consumers, giving a volume growth of 22 per cent (23314 units) over the sales of February 2004.

Excluding the exports and sales of MUVs, Maruti Udyog reported zero growth in the passenger car segment, a worrying departure for the market leader which had reported 16 per cent growth for the 11 month period ending February this year.

Barring the three digit growth in the MUV segment, thanks to the negligible base of 378 units sold in February 2004, the C-segment reported the best growth (of 55 per cent) in February 2005.

Baleno and Esteem, the company's C-segment offering sold 2153 units, against 1387 units sold in February 2004.

Overall growth in sales for the 11 months of 2004-05 was 481,688 units, a growth of 15 per cent over the same period last year and well ahead of the full year sales in the previous financial year of 472,122 units.