Domestic car sales moves to top gear in October led by Maruti, Hyundai

New Delhi: Riding on peak festive season purchases, domestic car sales moved to top gear in October led by market leader Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors, which posted strong numbers.

Similarly, Nissan Motor India and Volkswagen also reported robust sales during the month but Toyota saw a decline of 6 percent.

MSI's domestic sales were at 1,23,764 units as against 1,21,063 units in the same month last year, up 2.2 percent.

"Market demand for Maruti Suzuki products remained strong during the month. Strong retail sales of Ciaz, S Cross and Ertiga, besides of course Brezza and Baleno, kept the momentum positive for us," MSI Executive Director (Marketing and Sales) R S Kalsi said.

The sales of its mini segment cars, including Alto and WagonR, however, declined by 9.8 percent to 33,929 units as compared to 37,595 units in the year-ago month.

Sales of the compact segment comprising Swift, Estilo, Ritz, Dzire and Baleno also declined by 1.8 percent to 50,116 units in October this year as against 51,048 units last year.

Utility vehicles consisting of Gypsy, Grand Vitara, Ertiga, S-Cross and compact SUV Vitara Brezza surged over 90.9 percent to 18,008 units in October this year from 9,435 units in the corresponding month last year.

Rival Hyundai logged its best ever monthly domestic sales at 50,016 units last month as compared with 47,015 units in October last year, a growth of 6.4 percent.

"Hyundai with a highest-ever domestic volume of 50,016 units registered record cumulative sales of 64,372 units in October 2016," Hyundai Motor India MD and CEO Y K Koo said.

The recently launched all new Elantra received an overwhelming response with 1,509 bookings resulting in 4-5 months waiting period, he added.

Homegrown Tata Motors saw domestic sales passenger vehicles grew over 28 percent to 16,311 units last month, the company's highest sales in the last four years, as against 12,747 in the year-ago period.

The company's passenger car sales were up 31 percent at 14,483 units in October compared with 11,049 in the year-ago period.

"While we have been growing month-on-month, the festive season has further ushered in strong growth impetus for us. The Tata Tiago continued to receive strong response and Tata Zest retails were highest ever since launch, during this festive season," Tata Motors President Passenger Vehicle Business Mayank Pareek said.

Nissan Motor India reported domestic sales of 6,108 vehicles in October, up 88.17 percent, compared to 3,246 units sold in the same month a year ago.

"Our solid performance and overall growth of 88 percent in October has been possible with the continued robust performance of the Datsun redi-GO and tremendous response to the recently launched redi-GO SPORT version," Nissan Motor India managing director Arun Malhotra said.