Smaller cities get behind the wheel

Towns like Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Jalandhar and Karnal are driving India's car sales.

The B segment of the car market "" comprising the Alto, WagonR, Santro, Indica and Palio "" grew 23 per cent in 2002.

But sales in Jaipur grew 127 per cent, in Lucknow 115 per cent, in Karnal 127 per cent, in Jalandhar 86 per cent and in Hubli 65 per cent.

In 2002, the C segment--comprising the mid-sized sedans like Esteem, Accent and City "" grew 10.3 per cent.

But sales in Kochi grew 97 per cent, in Karnal 63 per cent, in Jalandhar 53 per cent, in Jaipur 34 per cent and in Kanpur 14 per cent.

Sales of the Maruti 800, the highest selling car in the country, declined 7 per cent in 2002. But sales were high in cities like Lucknow, Jaipur and Kanpur, the company said.

"Surprisingly, these growth rates are over fairly large bases. These cities are among the top 20 markets for car makers in the country, which includes the four metros as well as Hyderabad, Bangalore Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Guwahati," says a General Motors executive.

Anand Mohan Gupta, vice-president (marketing), at Fiat India, says a big chunk of C and D segment car sales is in Punjab and a lot of that in towns like Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

"Sonatas, Corollas and even Mercs are driven around Ludhiana's lanes. People have large disposable incomes in these towns and like to spend on luxury. They will even travel to Delhi to buy a car."

Maruti Udyog says the top 10 cities buy less than a third of the Maruti 800s sold. The average monthly sales in the top 10 cities in 2002-03 was 3,901. This financial year, the first quarter average monthly sales in the top 10 cities was 4,592.

"Consider this in terms of the penetration Maruti has achieved in rural areas, and one can well gauge the growth in the smaller towns. A lot of small town sales actually account for rural sales as well," an industry analyst adds.