KOCHI: Domestic car sales saw a muted growth in February with market leader Maruti Suzuki taking a hit due to the Jat quota stir in Haryana even as Hyundai Motor India and Mahindra saw increase in purchases during the month.
Tata Motors saw its domestic passenger vehicles sales dipping in last month. Maruti Suzuki India said its domestic sales increased marginally to 1,08,115 units as against 1,07,892 in February 2015.
“During February, the reservation agitation had disrupted component supplies, causing a temporary suspension of production by the company. Total production loss due to this was over 10,000 units. Despite that, the company was able to achieve marginal growth in domestic sales,” Maruti said.
Maruti saw sales of mini segment cars, including Alto and WagonR, decline by 11.2 per cent to 35,495 units as compared to 39,988 units in the same month last year. Sales of the compact segment comprising Swift, Estilo, Ritz, Dzire and Baleno increased marginally to 42,970 units in February this year as against 42,778 units in the year-ago period. Rival Hyundai Motor India’s domestic sales rose 9.1 per cent to 40,716 units in February compared with 37,305 units in February 2015.
Hyundai Motors senior Vice-President (Sales and Marketing) Rakesh Srivastava said the domestic growth was driven mainly by its three model brands, Creta, Elite i20 and Grand. M&M saw its domestic sales growing by 18.41 per cent to 41,348 units last month as against 34,918 in February 2015. Tata Motors saw sales of its passenger vehicles dip by 20 per cent at 10,962 units in February, as against 13,767 units in the same period last year.
Renault India’s sales zoomed over two-fold to 8,834 units in February as against 3,419 units last year. In the two-wheeler segment, Hero MotoCorp reported a 14% rise in sales at 5,50,992 units in February as against 4,84,769 in the same month last year. Royal Enfield, India Yamaha Motor and TVS Motors have also reported increased numbers in sales.