Auto Sales Back on their Feet

Auto industry sales graph looked up after two months of almost horizontal growth recording an overall growth of 14.30% in Jan`06. All the segments witnessed healthy growth (as shown in graph).

Car market leader Maruti Udyog Limited sold 48,526 units in the domestic market in Jan'06, clocking a growth of 7.1 per cent over Jan 05 The company witnessed total sales of 50,109 units (including 1,583 units of exports) during January 2006, which represents a 3.2%, increase over 48,544 units (including 3,244 units of exports) sold in Jan'05.

While the company's domestic sales volumes of A2 segment (Alto, WagonR, Zen and Swift) climbed up 21.2 per cent y-o-y, the growth in other segments i.e. A1 (M800), A3 (Baleno Esteem), C (Omni, Versa) and MUV (Gypsy, Vitara) segments, was in a negative terrain.

Honda Siel Cars India Ltd (HSCI) registered an impressive growth of 20.64% in sales in Jan'06 over its performance in Jan'05. The company sold a total of 4,570 cars during the month as compared with 3,779 cars sold during January last year.

Reflecting the tremendous response received by the City ZX range and the VTEC variant in particular, the sales of City ZX at 4,107 units grew 27% over 3,204 units sold in Jan'05.

The month of Jan’06 also saw the company being conferred the honour of ‘Manufacturer of the Year’ by two of the automobile awards – NDTV Profit-Bike & Car India and CNBC TV18-Autocar India.

After a rough patch, Ford India saw a leap of 110% in its Jan'06 sales, clocking 6,890 units (including 1,717 units of exports) compared to 3,287 units (including 980 units of exports) in Jan’05.

The recently launched Ford Fiesta is driving the growth. The company has received over 9,000 bookings. Over 6,250 units of the fiesta have been delivered to dealers across the country from the last week of Dec’05, when the company started sending out the cars from its plant at Maraimalai Nagar, south of Chennai.

Hyundai Motor India's total sales for the month fell by 4.24% y-o-y. The cumulative sales tally for the month was 20,023 units, including sale of 11,710 units in domestic market. In the overseas market, HMI exported a total of 8,313 vehicles achieving a growth of 30.4% over the same month of the year 2005.

The segmentwise cumulative sales of HMI in Jan'06 comprised: 15,732 units in A2 segment, 3,923 units in A3 segment, 223 units in A4 segment, 66 units in A5 segment and 79 units in SUV segment.

General Motors India recorded a dip of 14% in its sales, clocking 2,592 units in Jan'06 as against 3,022 units in January last year.

 
Mahindra & Mahindra's sales rose 3.8 per cent in January to 15,823 units from 15,238 units a year earlier. Exports rose 43 per cent to 351 units from 246 units. Mahindra sold 3,367 units of the popular Scorpio model, up 4 per cent over 3,240 units a year ago.

Tata Motors notched up a total sale of 46,635 vehicles (including exports) for the month of Jan'06, posting a growth of 19.6% over 39,000 vehicles sold in January last year.

The Passenger Car business reported its highest ever monthly sales with a tally of 20,765 vehicles in the domestic market in Jan'06 - a growth of 15% over Jan'05. Indica at 12,640 units grew by 18.7% - the sales being the highest ever in any month, primarily on account of good demand for the recently introduced Indica V2 Xeta Petrol and Indica V2 Turbo Diesel. The Indigo range grew by 15.6% with a sale of 3,865 units. The Sumo and Safari accounted for sales of 4,260 units, witnessing a growth of 5%.

The company's sales of commercial vehicles in Jan'06 in the domestic market aggregated 21,301 units, an increase of 25.3% over 17,003 vehicles sold in Jan'05. M&HCV sales stood at 13,086 units, while LCV sales were 8,215 units.

Tata Motors' exports at 4,569 units in Jan'06 as compared to 3,943 vehicles in Jan'05, also witnessed a significant growth of 15.9%.

Ashok Leyand sold 5,787 units (including 169 units of exports) in Jan’06. Compared with the same month last year, Jan`06 numbers reflect a 6% growth.

Eicher Motors' sales performance reflecting sales of 2,538 units in Jan'06 vis-à-vis 2,537 units during January a year ago was virtually static.

Hero Honda, the 'World No l' two-wheeler company for the fifth consecutive year, has continued to exhibit a leader's performance in the first month of the New Year.

During the month of Jan'06, the company sold 2,49,450 motorcycles, as against 2,30,280 motorcycles sold during Jan'05. This translates into an increase of 8.3% in sales volume.

In the month of January, Hero Honda rolled out its first scooter, the 100cc "Pleasure" and launched 22 women-exclusive scooter showrooms "Just4her" across the country. The cities where "Just4her" showrooms were launched include Lucknow, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune (two showrooms), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Baroda, Madgaon, Chennai (two showrooms), Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Nagpur, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Coimbatore, Cochin, Indore and Raipur.

The month of January also saw Hero Honda being conferred the honour of the "Bike Maker of the Year" by NDTV Profit - Bike and Car for the year 2005. Additionally, its 150cc offering Achiever received the coveted 'Bike of the Year' award. Achiever and Glamour also received the best bike awards in their respective categories. The 'NDTV Viewers Choice' award in the bike category was also awarded to Hero Honda Glamour, truly exemplifying the customers' enduring trust and faith in the company.

Bajaj Auto's motorcycle sales increased to 1,73,835 units - a notable jump from 1,32,028 units sold in Jan'05, reflecting a growth of 32%, which is well ahead of the estimated industry growth of 16%. This took Bajaj motorcycle market share to an all time high of approximately 33% in Jan'06.

Bajaj Pulsar DTS-i twins and the Bajaj Avenger DTS-i accumulating 33,412 units of sales (a growth of 37% over Jan'05), continue to lead the performance segment.

Bajaj garnered about 23% market share of the value segment registering record sales of 58,083 units of the Bajaj Discover twins. Their capacity is being expanded to 75,000 units per month in response to the high demand. Bajaj will also launch shortly an all-new motorcycle in the value segment to further consolidate its position in this segment.

3-wheeler sales of Bajaj Auto continued to be robust on the back of continued preference for Bajaj 3-wheelers running on alternate fuels. 3-wheeler sales clocked 22,019 units, up 34% over Jan`05 figure of 16,415 units.

The company reported a 28% rise in total two and three-wheeler sales, notching up 2,03,777 units in Jan’06 from 1,58,709 units in Jan’05.

Beginning the New Year on a spirited note, TVS Motor Company sales grew by 20% to add up to a total of 1, 12,909 units as against the figure of 94,467 units in the same month last year.

The company reported a growth of 25 per cent in motorcycle sales, accounting for 69,278 units in Jan06 compared to 55,639 units in Jan'05.

Sales of TVS StaR City crossed the 50,000-units-per-month mark. TVS Scooty recorded sales of 17,957 units in Jan'06 vis-a.-vis 14,724 units in Jan'05, a growth of 22%.

On the export front, TVS Motor Company continued its robust performance shipping out 6,374 units in Jan'06, which represents a growth of 147% y-o-y.

TVS Apache, the new 150 motorcycle in the premium segment, won the "Best Bike of the Year" award from CNBC TV18-Autocar India, Overdrive and Business Standard Motoring. It also won two top design awards namely "Best Design of the Year" by BBC TopGear and "Best Indigenous Design of the Year" by Overdrive.

Auto industry is hoping to build on the good performance of the first month of 2006. Further rationalisation of taxes and the cut in excise duty on passenger cars expected in the Union Budget 2006 is likely to take the passenger car segment, in particular, and the industry, in general, to a fast-laned growth course.