Automakers continued to witness strong demand in the month of May with most registering double digit growth in domestic sales.
Market leader Maruti Suzuki saw a growth of 24% in passenger vehicles sales at over 1.63 lakh units last month, driven by an almost 51% growth in sales of compact segment cars, including Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Dzire and Baleno, to 77,263 units.
Sales of utility vehicles (UVs) — Ertiga, S-Cross and Vitara Brezza, grew 13.4% to 25,629 units while those of mini segment cars —Alto and WagonR, declined 3% to 37,864 units. Sales of Ciaz declined by almost 15%, according to company data.
Hyundai Motor India registered 7.14% growth in sales to 45,008 units. Rival Honda Cars said it sold 15,864 units last month, a growth of 41% over the year-ago month, driven by demand for All New Honda Amaze. The company sold 9,789 units of the new Amaze, which was the highest-ever monthly sales numbers for a single Honda model.
Tata Motors saw a robust rise of 61% in sales of its passenger vehicles to 17,489 units last month.
“Thanks to the continued strong demand for Tiago and Tigor, our car sales recorded a growth of 18%, while the UVs continued to record an exceptional performance of 463% growth, due to the strong demand for Nexon and Hexa,” said Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicles business unit, Tata Motors.
For Ford, domestic sales in May touched 9,069 vehicles, up from 6,742 units in May 2017. “At a macroeconomic level, the outlook is positive thanks to good monsoon forecast. However, the industry needs to be exercise caution given the rising commodity and fuel prices that are expected to result in higher inflation,” said Anurag Mehrotra, president and managing director, Ford India. Mahindra and Mahindra sold 20,715 passenger vehicles in May 2018, a growth of 2%. Rajan Wadhera, President, Automotive Sector, M&M Ltd. said, “May has relatively been a subdued month compared to April…we have by and large maintained our growth momentum during the month of May 2018, especially in commercial vehicles…With the forecast of an upcoming normal monsoon we are confident of good growth in the coming months”.
Two-wheeler sales
In the two-wheeler segment, Hero MotoCorp reported 11% increase in total sales to 7.06 lakh units. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India said its domestic sales rose 2% to more than 5.19 lakh units.
Bajaj Auto domestic motorcycle sales rose 23% to more than 1.92 lakh units, while TVS Motor recorded growth of 2.4% in domestic two-wheeler sales to more than 2.46 lakh units. Niche bike maker Royal Enfield posted 24% growth in domestic sales to 72510 units in May.