The Hindu Business Line : Passenger vehicles sales in top gear

Mr Jagdish Khattar, President, SIAM and Managing Director, Maruti Udyog Ltd (right), with Mr Madhur Bajaj, Vice-President, SIAM and Vice-Chairman, Bajaj Auto Ltd, at a press conference in the Capital on Friday. -- Kamal Narang

New Delhi , April 16

REDUCTION in excise duties on cars, attractive finance schemes and a rapid growth in automotive exports have ensured that passenger vehicles sales sped across the one-million-mark in the last fiscal.

Total passenger vehicles (which includes cars, utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles) sales grew 32.20 per cent last fiscal to about 1.03 million units, which consisted of about 9,00,752 units in domestic sales and 129,316 units of exports, data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.

According to Mr Jagdish Khattar, President, SIAM and Managing Director, Maruti Udyog, the automotive industry performance is closely linked to industrial growth and there has been an emergence of India as a manufacturing hub for the automotive industry. He further expressed hope that passenger car sales alone would cross the significant one-million-mark in 2004-05.

In 2003-04, domestic passenger car sales grew 28.57 per cent to 696,207 units from 5,41,496 units in the previous year.

Compact cars (such as the Maruti WagonR and the Hyundai Santro) continued to be the dominant segment and grew by 23.4 per cent to 3,69,537 units in the fiscal from 299,359 units in the previous year.

Another segment that saw tremendous growth (though of a smaller base) in the year was the executive segment (consisting of cars such as the Skoda Octavia and the Toyota Corolla), which grew almost seven times to 14,337 units in the year.

Though the three major players - Maruti Udyog, Hyundai and Tata Motors - saw significant growth in the year, players such as General Motors, Honda and Toyota also saw a runaway rise in sales in the fiscal, helped by new model rollouts in the mid-size and executive segments.

The two-wheeler category also crossed the significant five-million-mark sales point during the last fiscal. The category grew by 11.49 per cent during the year to 5,365,013 units. According to Mr Madhur Bajaj, Vice-President, SIAM and Vice Chairman, Bajaj Auto Ltd, while motorcycles continued to be the dominant category, the year importantly also saw a revival in the scooters category.

While, the motorcycles category grew 14.34 per cent to 4,170,459 units in the fiscal, the scooter/scooterettee segment grew by 7.19 per cent helped largely by the sales of ungeared scooters of Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (which saw its sales close to double in the period).

The commercial vehicles segment, which is seen to be an indicator of economic growth, grew by 36.53 per cent in 2003-04 to 260,345 units helped largely by the various infrastructural development schemes launched by the Government. Growth in the category was mainly driven by the goods carriers segment.

The performance of the automobile industry on the exports side is also encouraging. While passenger vehicle exports clocked sales of about 1,30,000 in 2003-04, the two- and three-wheelers category also crossed the 3,00,000-mark for the first time clocking around 3,33,000 units in the year.

Meanwhile, in his outlook for the current year, Mr Khattar said that keeping the current indicators in view the passenger vehicles category (including exports) is likely to see a growth of 10-15 per cent in 2004-2005.

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