May 2016 Car Sales: Carmakers Saw Double Digit Growth in Domestic Sales

We are almost at the end of the first quarter of the 2016-17 fiscal and sales figures have been fairly decent for a number of carmakers in India. While most of them have seen considerable growth in domestic sales, exports numbers have taken a significant hit in the past few months, except for a few like Mahindra and Mahindra. Rest almost all leading carmakers including country's largest manufacturer - Maruti Suzuki India saw a considerable fall in export sales in May 2016.

All that said carmakers are still quite optimistic that the year will bring in volumes with a host of new models lined up for launch. Moreover the heightened expectations of increase in demand on the predictions of good monsoon and increasing domestic sales are keeping their hopes high. Here's how country's leading car manufacturers - Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, and Mahindra and Mahindra, have performed in May 2016.

1) Maruti Suzuki India

(Maruti Suzuki Alto and Wagon R Sales Went Down by 5.6%)

As mentioned earlier, 2016 hasn't been a very profitable year for India's largest manufacturer of passenger cars - Maruti Suzuki India. Within six months the company had to suspend production in both of its plants twice due to a number of unforeseen incidents. Despite that the carmaker managed to achieve 7.11 per cent growth in May 2016 with total sales clocked at 1,23,034 units compared to last year's 1,14,825 units during the same month.

Domestic sales have played a major role in achieving these numbers thanks to a growth of 10.6 per cent with sales of 1,13,162 units accounting for more 91 per cent of cumulative sales. Exports on the other hand went down by 20.8 per cent as the company only managed to sell 9,872 units compared to last year's 12,466 units. The utility vehicle segment dominated by the Vitara Brezza and S-Cross grew the most as the company sold 13,596 units as against 5567 units last year. The compact segment consisting of Swift, Ritz,Celerio, Baleno and Dzire grew by 11% whereas the mini segment with Alto and WagonR de-grew by -5.6%.

2) Hyundai India

(The Creta Was One of the Volume Drivers for Hyundai)

At the same time rival, Hyundai India registered the domestic sales of 41,351 units in May 2016 with a growth of 10.4 per cent compared last year's 37,450 units in May 2015. The company is yet to release the export figures but Hyundai India's Sr. Vice President Sales and Marketing, Rakesh Srivastava credited the sales growth to the company's top selling cars Creta, Elite i20 and Grand i10.

3) Mahindra and Mahindra

The country's leading utility vehicle manufacturer, Mahindra and Mahindra on the other hand saw a growth of 11 per cent in the month of May 2016 with total sale accounting for 40,656 units. The same time last year the company's sales were clocked at 36,706 units.

(Mahindra Saw an Exceptional 21 per cent Growth in Exports Alone)

Sales of passenger vehicles (which include UVs, Cars and Vans) went up by 8 per cent with 19,635 units being sold last month as against 18,135 units during May 2015. At the same time commercial vehicles market saw a growth of 15 per cent with 13,109 units being sold in May 2016 against last year's 11,407 units for May 2015.

In the domestic market alone Mahindra saw sold 36,613 units in May 2016 compared to last year's 33,369 units achieving a growth of 10 per cent. In fact Mahindra is the only carmaker in the list to see growth in export market as well with 4,043 units accounting for a growth of 21 per cent.

Honda Cars India

In retrospect, last month wasn't all that pretty for Honda Cars India as the company saw nearly 25.8% per cent decline in domestic sales with just 9,954 units being sold in May 2016 against 13,431 units in May 2015. Similar was the case with exports as well where the company managed to sell only 651 units compared to the 655 units exported last year during the same month.

You might also be interested to see the price of the best cars in India:
Renault Kwid, Honda City, Maruti Swift, Hyundai Elite i20, Maruti Baleno, Alto 800, Renault Duster, Maruti Wagon R, Maruti Swift Dzire, Mahindra Scorpio, Mahindra XUV500