Diwali Brightens Auto Sales In October; Hyundai Outperforms Maruti

Always billed as the blockbuster period for automobile sales, the Dussehra-Diwali spread has been no less exciting this time too. But it seems the country's number two carmaker has pipped the leader on capitalising on it. Cumulative sales at Hyundai went up 4.3% to 63,372 units. And if you discount exports, even domestic sales have established a new all-time high record - a year-on-year growth of 6.4%. Hyundai saw its sales drivers - Creta, i20 and Grand i10 continue to perform, while even the new Elantra has contributed better than expected bookings since its launch at the end of August.

By contrast market leader Maruti Suzuki registered a growth of just 2.2% year-on-year in the domestic market by selling 1.23 lakh units as against 1.21 lakh units in October 2015. The utes dominated that growth, with the Vitara Brezza, S-Cross, and Ertiga selling over 18,000 units. But there has been a sharp drop of almost 10% in Maruti's bread and butter segment of compact hatchbacks - with sales of the Alto and WagonR declining to 33,929 units (37,595 units in October 2015). Even the more premium compacts - Baleno, Celerio, Swift and Swift Dzire saw a marginal dip of 1.8% to 50,116 units. It was the Baleno that shored up the numbers even as the ageing Swift lost sales to it and the Vitara Brezza. The taxi segment Dzire Tour model also saw a massive drop in volume at 2481 units - a staggering 27.4% fall.

It has been a strong festive sales season as expected. And the momentum should carry on through to the year-end says Abdul Majeed, Partner at Price Waterhouse, "Passenger car sales continue to grow. This is backed by positive customer sentiments and better in hand cash flows to support their discretionary spends. Overall we should see good growth this year in all the vehicle categories."

Two other new models have also helped their respective brands come back from the brink - the Tata Tiago and Volkswagen Ameo. The German carmaker had launched the petrol Ameo in June while the diesel model had only arrived at the very of September. Sales in October were up 70% at 5534 units, as compared to 3255 units in the corresponding month last year. VW expects the growth trend to continue. VW will launch the Polo GTI, Passat GT plugin hybrid and the Tiguan over the next few months.

Meanwhile Tata Motors is continuing to see a smart bounceback thanks to the Tiago. Overall sales in October stood at 52,813 units - up 21%. But it was the passenger car division that led the growth clocking its highest sales in the last four years at 16,311 units - that's a smart growth of 28%. So far this fiscal, passenger vehicles have registered a 15% uptick at Tata, by selling 88,976 units in April-October 2016 as compared to 77,465 units in the same period last year. The company's Commercial Vehicles business also recorded its highest-ever monthly sales at 30,169 units, up 15%.

The Datsun redi-GO also continues to aid Nissan's growth in India that reported a growth of over 88% in domestic sales.