Sindhu Bhattacharya

New Delhi: The fiscal has begun on a positive note for Motown, but market indicators do not really bode well for the near future.

Though new launches continue to perk up the segment, the steady increase in input costs, rising expenses for marketing and promotional schemes, and the tightening of the loan market for cars as well as two-wheelers are ominous signs.

According to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), 8,06,238 vehicles were sold in the domestic market last month, which is a growth of almost 10%. Coupled with exports of 1,19,419 units, the growth in total sales is over 12%.

Perhaps to keep the impending slowdown at bay, Korean major Hyundai has also begun to actively court rural customers -something that has been associated with Maruti Suzuki till now.

While the passenger car market leader has already deepened its penetration into the hinterland through several innovative schemes, Hyundai has now followed suit with special schemes for government employees and members of gram panchayats on the purchase of Santro.

In passenger cars, only the A2 segment showed uniform growth (except for Tata Indica, which is soon getting replaced).

Sales of M800 as well as midsized sedans such as Chevrolet Aveo, Honda City, and Hyundai Accent and Verna combined showed marked declines. Sales of the M800 declined by almost 30% to 4,458 units; Honda City was down 32% to 1,981 units whereas the combined sales of Accent and Verna fell almost 12% to 2,668 units.

Even Executive segment cars such as the BMW 3-series, Honda Civic, Hyundai Elantra and Toyota Corolla reported falling sales. BMW 3-series was down 4 units at 72 units, Honda Civic lost 22.5% at 1,147 units and Toyota Corolla lost almost 19% at 438 units.

In two-wheelers, similar selective growth was seen. Hero Honda reported the largest, threeand-a-half times increase in scooter sales but all other players (except TVS Motor Co) reported declining sales last month. Hero Honda sold 5,832 ‘Pleasure’ scooters during the month under review.

But in motorcycles, the trend was reversed — Yamaha Motor Co and Kinetic Motor Co were the only two players to report a decline. Bajaj Auto reported an almost 10% sales increase at 138,117 units, Hero Honda sold 8% more at 276,580 units and TVS saw a marginal 2.4% increase at 49,186 units.

Source : DNA