CHENNAI: Auto companies across the board have registered robust growth in April despite price increases and the uncertainty surrounding diesel vehicles due to the Supreme Court ban on diesel vehicles with engines larger than 2,000 cc in the Delhi-NCR region.
Major drivers for growth were compact vehicles like Swift, Baleno and i10 variants. The diesel ban seems to have had little impact on sales feel experts.
“Less than 11 per cent of sales come from the Delhi-NCR region, of which less than 45 per cent are diesel cars. 2,000 cc and above would be hardly 2 per cent of the total Indian market,” said Rajeev Singh, Head, Automobiles, KPMG India.
Domestic auto major Maruti Suzuki India reported a 16.2 per cent rise in the sales in domestic market during the month under review at 1,17,045 units. Chairman, R C Bhargava, had stated on April 8, “The Supreme Court ban, as it exists does not impact Maruti Suzuki, so we are not affected….."
Last month, however, witnessed sales of the compact segment, comprising Estilo, Ritz and Dzire increase by 8 per cent to 45,700 units as against 42,297 units a year ago, about 36 per cent of Maruti’s total sales.
For Hyudai Motor India, major growth drivers were compact models. “We continued volume growth of 9.7 per cent over last year with strong performance of Creta, Elite i20, Grand," HMIL senior vice- president sales and marketing Rakesh Srivastava said.
In the two-wheeler segment, TVS Motor Company reported a 16 per cent rise in sales at 2,27,096 units. Scooter sales went up 28.3 per cent to 63,341 units as against 49,375 in the same period a year ago. For Honda, sales grew 25.83 per cent, clocking 4,13,971 units, while Hero Motorcorp reported a 14.89 per cent growth in sales at 6,12,739 units.