Green shoots appeared to be emerging in the auto sector on Wednesday with Maruti Suzuki India reporting 3.9% increase in total sales during December.
Driven by festive season and heavy discounts, the country’s largest car manufacturer sold 1.33 lakh units as compared to 1.28 lakh units year-on-year.
Domestic sales grew by 3.5% at 1.25 lakh units against 1.21 lakh units in December 2018 while exports grew by 10.2% at 7,561 units in December 2019 as against 6,859 units in the same month of the previous year.
Passenger car sales went up by 9.1% at 91,341 units against 83,729 units while passenger vehicle sales grew by 2.5% at 1.22 lakh units against 1.19 lakh units year-on-year.
While the mini-car segment showed a decline of 13.6% at 23,883 units from 27,649, the compact-car segment (New WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire) reported 27.9% jump in sales at 65,673 units from 51,346 units. Taken together, the mini and compact segment clocked a gain of 13.4%.
However, the mid-size Ciaz reported 62.3% drop in December 2019 sales at 1,786 units from 4,734 units in the year-ago period. The sale of vans (Omni, Eeco) too crashed by 51.8 per cent to 7,634 units from 15,850 units.
Amid slowdown in economic growth and weak demand environment, the automobile industry saw a significant decline in sales during 2019 due to increase in the cost of acquisition of a car, more stringent safety and emission (BS 6) norms, increase in vehicle insurance expenses and hike in road taxes in many states.