Festive season brings cheer to auto makers

Driven by the festive mood and new cars launches, car sales has witness an upswing in October 2020, as top car makers post growth in sales, with Maruti and Hyundai clocking highest ever monthly sales.

- Ritwik Sinha

Maruti Suzuki India

The country’s largest passenger car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd reported sales of 182,448 units in October, a 18.9 percent growth over 153,435 last year.

Total domestic sales was 166,825 units, and 6,037 units for other OEMs. Exports are up at 9,586 units in October.

MSI’s mini segment, which includes Alto and S-Presso, has registered sales of 28,462 units in October as against 28,537 units sold in the year-ago month.

The compact segment - WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire, Tour S - has registered sales of 95,067 units. This has grown by 26.6 percent as only 75,094 units were sold by this segment in October of 2019.

Sales of Ciaz in mid-sized sedan segment declined 40 percent from 2,371 units in the previous year.

Maruti’s utility vehicle (UV) range includes Gypsy, Ertiga, S-Cross, VitaraBrezza, XL6. These managed to register sales of 25,396 units in October, as against 23,108 units sold lat year.

Sales in vans were 13,309 units, growth of almost 33 percent.

This despite the fact that the Omni is no longer on offer in this segment and it is only the EECO which is generating sales for Maruti in the Vans segment.

In the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment, Maruti registered sales of 3,169 units in September.

Their only LCV on offer, Super Carry managed sales of 2,429 units in same month last year.

Hyundai Motor

Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) registered cumulative sales (domestic + exports) of 68,835 units in October, up by 8.2 percent as compared to 63,610 units in the same month of last year.