The Hindu Business Line : Car sales slow down in August

AFTER five consecutive months of double-digit sales (following the excise cut in the Union Budget), car sales climbed a modest 6.7 per cent in August 2003.

While Hyundai and Tata Motors saw an improved performance in the month, market leader - Maruti Udyog - saw a marginal decline in sales, partly as a result of the company's production getting affected due to a vendor strike in the month.

Meanwhile, riding on the success of the newly-launched Santro Xing, Hyundai India's domestic sales grew 20 per cent to 11,050 units in August 2003, as compared to 9,201 units in August 2002.

Total domestic cars sales climbed to 53,177 units in August 2003 from 49,828 units in the same month last year, data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.

The August sales were lower by 11 per cent as compared to 59,800 cars sold in July this year.

Sale of commercial vehicles jumped by 39.3 per cent in August this year to 19,967 units from 14,328 units in the same month last year, driven by strong demand for both light and heavy vehicles.

Sale of medium and heavy (M&H) buses and trucks increased by 48.2 per cent to 12,483 units in August on the back of growth by Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Eicher Motors.

Trucks have been seeing higher demand due to increased construction work, especially on the National Highway Development Project, and cyclical fleet replacement by operators.

Light commercial vehicles too continued their upward trend clocking a 26.7 per cent rise in sales at 7,484 units.

In the motorcycle and step-through segment, sales of market leader Hero Honda Motors increased by a modest 5.3 per cent to 1,43,164 units while that of Bajaj Auto rose by 11.5 per cent to 72,879 units.

The segment grew by 9.8 per cent to 3,17,453 units in August 2003, from 2,88,937 units in the same month last year.

Scooters and scooterettees recorded a marginal 2.6 per cent growth at 72,852 units in August driven largely by higher sales of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India and TVS.

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