Car sales skid 22% in September

Our Corporate Bureau

Mumbai, Oct 17: The domestic automobile industry continued to move in reverse gear with domestic car sales witnessing a drop for the second successive month. Car sales witnessed a 22.3-per cent drop for September as most car manufacturers, including Maruti Udyog registering a drop in sales figures.

Total sales stood at 46,080 cars against 59,372 cars in the same month last year, according to data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Maruti Udyog saw a 18.57-per cent drop in sales at 28,396 units, as against 34,873 units for September last. Car sales of Hyundai Motor India fell by 26.4 per cent at 6,061 units in September, as against 8,242 cars in the same month last year.

Ford India witnessed a 36.6 per cent drop at 1,151 cars (1,817 cars), while General Motors India (GMI) posted a 30.7 per cent drop at 800 cars (1,156 cars).

However, sales of domestic automaker Tata Engineering increased by 50.1 per cent at 5,408 cars (3,602 cars), aided mainly by the launch of the Indica V2 petrol version.

Fiat India, cashing in on the initial success of the Palio, also saw an impressive jump in sales at 53.3 per cent at 1,382 cars during the review period.

Sales during the first half of this fiscal (April-September 2001-02) went down by 6.1 per cent to 2.77 lakh cars, against 2.95 lakh cars in the year-ago period.

Commercial vehicles (CV) sales, which were showing signs of looking up, however, dropped 3.8 per cent to 11,842 units from 12,319 units in the year-ago month. This was due to a 22.7-per cent drop in light commercial vehicles (LCV) sales, even as the medium and heavy vehicles (M&H) segment recorded a 10.2-per cent growth.

Tata Engineering recorded a 33.5 per cent rise in M&H vehicle sales at 5,355 units but posted a 32.7 per cent decline in LCV sales at 2,107 units.

The scooter segment also had reason to cheer, with market leader Bajaj Auto propping up total industry sales by 13.8 per cent at 74,103 units. Bajaj Auto has posted a 31.6-per cent growth at 28,644 scooters during September this year (21,759 units in the year-ago month). Motorcycle sales also continued their steady growth, showing an increase of 27.2 per cent at 2.34 lakh units during the review month.

However, moped sales of all companies declined during September.Multi-utility-vehicle (MUV) sales fell 5.8 per cent at 10,003 units (10,620 units in September 2000).