India car sales in March stay in the slow lane

While SIAM has yet to announce its official figures for the just-ended fiscal year 2013-14, it is more than amply clear that car sales have remained largely flat with the big three players recording declines in their March 2014 tallies.

Maruti Suzuki India saw its sales dip by 5.2 percent as compared to the last year even as its fiscal tally was flat at 0.25 percent. The Celerio launched at the Auto Expo in February has racked by about 14,000-and-odd sales with bookings in the region of 20,000 units.

Hyundai Motor India’s sales fell 3.38 percent to 35,003 units as compared to 33,858 units in the year-earlier month. Tata Motors recorded a slight increase of 2.37 percent to 12,640 units as against 12,347 units in March last year. The Grand i10 completes the year with over 65,000 units sold is one of the key successes of the Korean carmaker.

The company that by far put in a stellar performance was Honda Cars India that sold 18,426 units, up 83 percent over the last year. The City sold 9,518 units while the Amaze sold 7374 units. With its second shift taking off, the company has cut the waiting period for the Amaze to about three weeks.

Mahindra & Mahindra sales fell 10 percent in the year to 23,433 units as against 25,847 units in 2012-13.

Toyota Kirloskar sold just 8,206 units in the month, down 57 percent as compared to the last year thanks to the strike at the Bidadi plant that cut production of at least 2,000 cars.

In fact, one feature of the last month was labour strife at Ford India where workers expressed some unhappiness with the productivity incentives that were being given. Maruti had to contend with mutual fund and insurance companies which have expressed unhappiness with the company’s decision to float the Gujarat plant, slated to come up by 2015, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation.

The year that has ended on March 31 has seen a slew of new products that include the Ford EcoSport, Nissan Terrano and the Skoda Octavia. The last 10 days of the year saw Nissan add to its tally thanks to the Datsun Go which sold 2,072 units.   

It appears that the recent cut in excise duties did not quite have the impact on sales as far as cars go. The interim Budget cut duties from 12 percent to 8 percent but is valid till the end of June 2014.

Meanwhile, while some carmakers have announced a rise in prices, Honda Cars India has only increased prices of the City.

In the coming year, several launches are expected include the Bolt and Zest from Tata, the Jazz and Mobilio from Honda and the Etios Cross from Toyota.