Bike sales continue downward journey for fifth month

Bike sales continued their poor run in the domestic market and fell for the fifth month in running, going down 17% in July even as car sales managed yet another month of double-digit growth.

According to figures released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), continued poor performance of big players like Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda and TVS dampened sales that stood at 3,75,004 units against 4,53,152 units in July 2006.

The poor run, a result of high interest rates and credit squeeze by finance companies, has depressed bike sales so far this fiscal with a 15% decline in the April-July 2007 numbers at 17,53,772 units against 20,65,713 units in the same period last fiscal.

However, for car companies, it was yet another month of growth as manufacturers like Maruti and General Motors kept the momentum going even though many others like Tata Motors, Hyundai and Honda saw dips in year-on-year sales performance.

Total car sales in July grew 11% at 89,548 units against 80,543 units in the same month last year, Siam said.

Though slowed down by the high interest rates, car sales in the April-July ’07 period have grown 11.4% at 3,64,695 units against 3,24,755 units in the same period last year.

The booster to numbers has been new product launches like ‘Spark’, ‘Logan’ and ‘SX4’, apart from ground-level efforts by companies to reduce the negative effects of high interest rates through special schemes and discounts.

The poor bike sales have also impacted the overall automobiles sale in the country that declined by 6.36% to 6,83,684 units against 7,30,194 units in the same month last year.

Commercial vehicles (CV) sales during the month was up marginally by 2.53% at 33,496 units as against 32,670 units in the corresponding month a year ago, Siam said.

Light commercial vehicles posted a growth of 16.47% at 15,755 units as against 13,526 units last year, but the drag came from the important medium- and heavy-CV segment where sales were down by 7.32% at 17,741 units compared to 19,144 units in the corresponding month last year.