Passenger car sales grew in December 2005

Passenger car sales grew in December 2005

As per the latest figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the auto industry of India saw a growth of around 8.8 per cent in the last month of 2005. This is surprising considering consumers generally avoid buying cars in the last months of a year to get a new model year car which helps while reselling the car a couple of years later.

Even the two-wheeler segment noticed a minor improvement in sales by around 1.7 per cent. However, the sales in commercial vehicles segment showed a negative growth of 6 per cent. The sales figures for cars stood in December 2005 at around 65,853 units as against 60,521 units in the same month a year ago.

India’s dominating automobile maker Maruti was the chief beneficiary as their sales grew by as much as 20.38 per cent with 38,078 units sold. They had sold around 31,631 units in the same month the previous year. Hyundai posted disappointing sales figures of around 7,738 units, which is a negative growth rate of 37.7 per cent compared to cars, sold in December 2004.

Tata Motors was the other company, which showed a considerable improvement in sales of their passenger segment cars. They sold 9,730 units as against 7,122 units in the same month a year ago. This is an improvement of around 36.61 per cent compared to last year.