Come September And Motown Revs Up

Come September, and the country’s auto villa had reasons to cheer, as all leading car makers, apart from Ford India, saw their sales graph moving northward, boosted by the festivities.

The country’s largest automaker, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), clocked total sales of 163,071 units, recording a growth of 9.3 percent over 149,143 units during the corresponding month of 2016, which includes 151,400 units of domestic sales and 11,671 units of exports.

However, sales of MSI's small cars saw a dip at 13.3 percent, at 38,479 units, in September 2017 as compared to 44,395 units in September last year. The utility vehicles (UV) segment, saw sales of 19,900 units, which is an 8 percent growth over September 2016's sales of 18,423 units.

The biggest growth for Maruti was in the compact segment which grew 44.7 percent at 72,804 units as compared to 50,324 units in September 2016. The company sold a total of 150,521 passenger vehicles domestically in September 2017.

The second largest passenger vehicles maker, Hyundai Motor India, sold 50,028 units in September 2017, which is 17.4 percent more than what it sold in September last year, at 42,605 units. Compared to the sales in August 2017, which were at 47,103 units, the company posted a growth of 6.2 percent. One of the key factors for the good sales numbers in September was the launch of the new-generation Verna, which sold over 6,000 units.

Rakesh Srivastava, Director, Sales and Marketing, Hyundai Motor India, said, "Hyundai achieved landmark sales of 50,028 units with a growth of 17.4 percent, on the multiplier effect of phenomenal performance of newly launched NextGen Verna with sales of over 6,000 units along with the strong pull for the Creta, i20 and Grand i10 in this festive season."