The Indian automobile industry has started the New Year on a high as almost all major car makers performed considerably well in the quarter ended in January 2011. The starting month of year 2011 brought record braking growth for many car makers in the India with companies like Ford India and Mahindra & Mahindra registered their best monthly sales ever during this month.
Ford India, a unit of US based leading automaker Ford Motors, was among the fastest growing car makers in India during this month. The company sold a total of 10,026 units in the month, accounting a massive sales jump of 309 percent over sales of same period previous year. As per a statement given by Michael Boneham, president, Ford India, “We have carried the momentum of last year’s terrific performance into the new year by crossing the 10,000 unit sales mark.” In the calendar year 2010, Ford India sold a total of 83,887 cars in the country, accounting a jump of over 184 percent over same period previous year.
The Indian auto giant Maruti Suzuki registered a sales jump of 14.74 percent to 109,743 units in January as compared to 95,649 units in January 2010. The sales of A2 segment of Maruti cars (Alto, Wagon-R, Estilo, Swift, A-Star and Ritz) stood at 72,479 units during the month as compared to 58,540 units sold in the January 2010, accounting a 23.8 percent rise in sales. On the other hand, the sales of A3 segment of Maruti cars (SX4 and Swift Dzire) jumped by 32.6 percent to 11,930 units as compared to 8,995 units sold in the same month last year. In the first 10 months of this financial year (April 2010 to January 2011), Maruti registered a record sales of 10,37,408 units.
However, the overall sales of country’s largest car exporter – Hyundai Motors India – dipped by 17.7 percent due to a fall in exports volume. The company managed to sell 43,316 cars (domestic- 30,306 units, exports - 13,010 units), as against 52,628 units (domestic - 29,601, exports - 23,027) sold in the January 2010. The segment-wise sales of the company (in January 2011) were as follows – A2 (Santro, i10, i20) at 39,343 units; A3 (Accent and Verna) at 3,957 units; A5 (Sonata Transform) 11 units. The sales of SUV Hyundai Santa Fe stood at 5 units. As per a statement given by Mr. Arvind Saxena, director of marketing and sales, HMIL is on a steady growth path riding on strong performance of its compact cars.
The sales of General Motors India surged marginally by 6 percent during this month. The company managed to sell 9,984 units in January as compared to 9,421 units sold during January 2010. The sales figures of company’s different car models during Jan2011 were as follows - Chevrolet Spark at 3,272 units; Chevrolet Beat at 3,345 units; Chevrolet Tavera at 1,691 units; Chevrolet Cruze at 715 units; Chevrolet Aveo at 243 units; Chevrolet Aveo U-VA at 331 units; Chevrolet Optra at 296 units and Chevrolet Captiva at 91 units. Mr. P. Balendran, vice president of General Motors India, said that the increase in sales was primarily driven by the response to Chevrolet Beat, Spark and Cruze.
The Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM) registered a sales growth of 53 percent to 9,185 units up from in January 2011 as compared to 5,989 units sold in January 2010. The January 2011 sales of the company include 5,284 units of Innova, 1,139 units of Corolla Altis and 1,103 units of Fortuner. Speaking on the company’s January Sales results, Mr. Sandeep Singh, Deputy Managing Director of Marketing, said, “It's been a good beginning. The growth can be attributed to the encouraging sales of the existing models and the overwhelming response received from the Etios.”
