Even as increase in vehicle prices following withdrawal of excise duty sops played a spoiled sport, top car makers managed to register decent growth in sales in January on the back of interest rate cut, declining fuel prices and discount schemes.
While Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai posted single digit sales growth, Tata Motors, Honda Cars India and Toyota posted healthy double-digit sales growth over the last year. A few others like GM, Mahindra & Mahindra and Ford, however, posted a decline in sales. Market leader Maruti Suzuki’s sales increased by nine per cent to 1.06 lakh units, helped by growth in sales of compact segment cars, comprising Swift, Estilo, Ritz and Dzire.
Hyundai Motor India registered 4.1 per cent growth in sales to 34,780. Its Senior Vice President (Sales and Marketing) Rakesh Srivastava said this growth came in on the momentum built by products such as new Elite i20, Grand and Eon, “while facing the stiff challenges of increasing cost of ownership on account of increase in excise duties.” “For sustained growth, the need of the hour is reduction in interest rates and rationalisation of taxes to increase the inflow of the first time buyers,” he added.
Riding on the success of its two new models — Bolt and Zest — Tata Motors posted nearly 19 per cent growth at 13,047 units in passenger vehicles sales last month.
The Indian unit of Japanese car major Honda posted almost 17 per cent rise in sales at 18,331 units. Similarly, Toyota Kirloskar Motor registered a growth of 16 per cent in first month of this calendar year, selling 12,650 units.On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra’s sales declined by eight per cent to 37,045 units. “The first month of 2015 has not been encouraging as the effect of the withdrawal of excise duty subsidy is clearly evident,” company Chief Executive (Automotive Division) Pravin Shah said.
While General Motors India reported a 16.01 per cent decline in sales at 4,667 units, Ford India’s sales fell marginally to 6,647 units.
Stating that rollback of excise duty concessions has further contributed to the prevailing low consumer sentiment, Ford India Vice President (Marketing, Sales and Service) Anurag Mehrotra said that while the auto industry welcomed the Reserve Bank of India’s recent move to reduce interest rates, a lot more needed to be done to restore the sector on a growth trajectory.
“We hope that the government will continue its pro-consumer, industry-friendly reform policy, and introduce measures to boost demand in the upcoming budget,” he said.
In the two-wheeler segment, Hero MotoCorp witnessed a marginal decline in total sales at 5.59 lakh units in January, while Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India posted 14.24 per cent growth in total sales at 3.94 lakh units.
Motorcycle sales of Bajaj Auto declined by 12 per cent to 2.47 lakh units. TVS Motor Co said its two-wheeler sales increased by 3.93 per cent to 1.62 lakh units. Likewise, Yamaha Motor India reported 21 per cent rise in two-wheeler sales at 39,309 units in the said month. Royal Enfield reported 42 per cent jump in sales at 28,157 units, compared to 19,808 units in the year ago month.
