Maruti bucks trend with highest-ever car sales in Jan

January marked a feather in the cap for the country’s top carmaker Maruti Suzuki which posted its highest ever monthly sales of 71,779 units. It’s previous highest was in March 2007 when it sold 71,772 cars.

Maruti’s total sales in January grew 5.4 per cent over the same period last year. The domestic market accounted for 67,005 cars. What is remarkable is that the company showed a growth in monthly sales after a drop for the three preceding months. In December, for instance, sales totalled 56,293 units.

Maruti showed 124 per cent growth in midsize segment that includes SX4 and D’zire at 6,590 units while its volume driver hatchback segment A2 that includes Alto, Wagon R, Zen, Swift and A-Star almost touched 47,000 in January, mainly on the back of recently launched A-Star.

Closest rival Hyundai Motor India did not have as good a run though with a marginal drop at 37,216 units. It sold around 500 cars less than in January 2008 thanks largely to a 14 per cent slump in the domestic market. Exports grew 21 per cent to 16,200 units.

Tata Motors reported nine per cent lower sales at 18,331 cars (compared to January last year) but twice as much from December’s volume at 9,838 units. The company said the Indica range sales at 11,433 were the largest in the current fiscal. Mahindra-Renault’s midsize car Logan sales shrunk to 597 against 2,301 in the same month last year.

In the two-wheeler segment, Hero Honda posted six per cent growth in January at 3.15 lakh units. It had showed a 10 per cent drop in volumes at 2.16 lakh units in December. Bajaj Auto, in contrast, reported a 34 per cent drop in sales at 110,363 units. It had begun showing lower volumes from September. Sales in the preceding month, December, were 33 per cent down at 119,215 units. TVS Motor Company showed flat sales at 93,729 units in January.

In probably the first signal of a turnaround in commercial vehicle sales, Tata Motors, the country’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, has reported that its sales in January were higher than in November and December, when sales fell by about 50 per cent. However, the January 2009 commercial vehicles at 17,307 units were still 43 per cent lower than January 2008 numbers. The medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales at 5,811 units, though 63 per cent lower than January 2008 figures, were the highest in the last three months.