Indian auto industry sales graph raises high
Indian car market is booming up and the results are very much visible in it sales figure. The leading carmakers were out with their record sales figures. Maruti Suzuki India Limited registered a sales growth of 13.3 percent. The company sold 764,842 vehicles - 711,818 units domestically and 53,024 units abroad - in 2007-08, the highest ever in the history of the company. Maruti is strengthening its leadership in the A2 segment with its Alto, WagonR, Zen, Swift models, and has also attained leadership in the A3 segment with SX4, DZire, Esteem, and Baleno for 2007-08. At present, Alto, is the popular the model among the Indian middle-class and is countrys top selling car, clocking volumes of 227,173 units during the year. This is the second consecutive year in which Alto sales crossed the 200,000 mark. The other plans that are in line for Maruti Suzuki is their ambitious export plan for the medium term, the company tied up with the Adani Group for a mega car terminal at Mundr a Port, which will start its operation by yearend. Though other models saw hike in their sales figure, the entry level Maruti-800, which still remains peoples favorite car, saw a dip of 12.2 percent in its growth chart. The company is very active with its new launch, SX4 was launched last year winning millions of heart, and Grand Vitara in July 2007 and the latest launch was Dzire, making it seven new models in three years. It also unveiled the Concept A-Star model, created by an in-house team of designers from Maruti and Suzuki Motor Corporation, at the World Auto Expo in New Delhi earlier this year. Talking about another leader in car makers Hyundai Motor India Ltd also saw a growth of 16.1 percent for the fiscal 2008 selling 360,937 cars - 216,495 units domestically and 144,442 units in exports. For the month of March 2008, its total sales stood at 47,001 units including 17,600 in exports as against 28,239 units sold during March 2007 with 8,939 units exported. Recently launched compact i10 has done well in the sales and is on its way to becoming a very popular car. General Motors India Pvt Ltd did not lag behind either, in the 2008 financial year; the company sold 66,543 units, which is up from 38,857 units sold in the previous year and Chevrolet Spark can be given the credit partially for the companys growth.