After a four-month slump,
car sales picked up in September with the beginning of the festive season and new launches, especially diesel variants.
Despite good response of
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd's (MSIL) new Swift which garnered bookings of over one lakh units, labour unrest hit the company's sales, which slumped to 78,816 units against 95,148 units sold in September, 2010.
Sales of mini-segment cars, ( M800, AStar, Alto and WagonR) fell by 23.5 per cent to 37,324 units from 48,780 and the compact segment (comprising Estilo, Swift and Ritz) witnessed a 9.3 per cent dip in sales to 19,722 units from 21,749 units in September last year. Sales of SX4 fell sharply to 196 units from 1,965 units. However, sales of DZiRE, grew by 9.9 per cent to 9,411 units.
Domestic sales of Hyundai Motors India Ltd (HMIL) grew by 13.2 per cent to month last year. Sales in the A2 segment ( Santro, i10 and i20) stood at 49,552 units while in the A3 segment ( Accent and Verna) sales stood at 8,051 units driven by its new Verna.
Arvind Saxena, director (marketing and sales), HMIL, said, "We will launch our much- awaited compact car Eon this month. In spite of a sluggish market we expect Eon to boost our sales and increase market share."
Tata Motors passenger vehicle sales stood at 26,319 units in September, up 10.22 per cent from 23,877 units last year. Sales of the Indica range were up 64 per cent at 10,282 units on account of new Vista model. The Indigo family recorded sales of 7,793 units, down 11 per cent, while sales of Sumo, Safari, Aria and Venture grew by 60 per cent to 5,308 units while sales of Nano continued to drop to 2,936 units, down 47 per cent.
General Motors India reported 17.35 per units driven by its newly launched diesel Beat. The company sold 5,261 units of Beat and 1,603 units of Spark.
Nissan Motor's sales rose by 73 per cent to 2,176 units buoyed by the success of its Micra compact car, which sold 1,475 units.
The recently launched diesel version of Etios sedan and Liva boosted the sales of Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd, which sold 12,807 units in September, more than double of last year.
Volkswagen sold 6,845 vehicles in September, a growth of 39 per cent over 4,663 vehicles sold in September 2010. This was driven by the Polo and the Vento.
Honda Siel Cars India, which does not offer any diesel version of its cars saw sales falling to 4,758 units in September, from 7,728 units sold last year. However, the firm expects its new small car Honda Brio launched last month to rev up its sales in the coming days.
Courtesy: Mail Today 
Special 
