Pick-up in car sales

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 1. January proved to be a slightly better month for car manufacturers with sales registering an upward trend as compared to December. The market leader Maruti Udyog sold 33,898 passenger cars in January which was about 10,000 units more than in December. In fact, the company sold about 4,000 more cars in January this year compared with the same month in the previous year.

The company claimed major gains in the competitive `B' segment (Zen-Santro-Matiz category) with sales 64 per cent higher than in the same month last year. In all, the company sold 10,349 units of the Zen, Alto and the Wagon-R. Sales of the people's car, Maruti 800, were 16,731 units which the company said was 33 per cent higher than in the same month last year. Omni ssales were 5,616 units, Alto 3,693 units, Zen 5,039 units, Wagon-R 1,617 units, Esteem 1,045 units and Baleno 157 units. The Gypsey which falls in the multi-utility category, managed to sell just 111 units while exports accounted for 878 vehicles.

Honda Siel

Honda Siel Cars also started the new calendar year with higher sales. The company sold 850 vehicles in January as against 728 units in the previous month. The company attributed the improved performance to higher demand for City Vtec, introduced in the Indian market last year. However the company's performance had slipped when compared with the 1,003 units sold in January 2000.

Hindustan Motors

Hindustan Motors reported sales of 2,351 cars which was an improvement over the 1,561 units sold in December. However, the performance fell marginally short of the 2,436 cars sold in January last year. The luxury car Lancer sold 701 units as compared to 654 in January last year. Ambassador 1800 ISZ sold 476 units (278 in previous January), 876 units (1,213) of Ambassador 1500 D and 298 units (291) of Ambassador 2000D.

General Motors

PTI reports:

General Motors India has reported a sales of 558 cars in January against 202 cars in the same month last year. The sales included 243 units of the mid-size car Opel Corsa and 315 units of premium mid-size car Opel Astra, the company's Vice President (corporate affairs), Mr. P. Balendran, said. The company had sold 202 Astra cars in January 2000 while the Corsa was launched in early last year, he said.

GMI, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based General Motors Corp. posted a 55 per cent growth in January over 360 cars sold in december last year.

Hyundai Motor

Hyundai Motor India said it had posted a modest 4.7 per cent rise in its January sales at 9,066 cars over 8,655 units in the same month last year. Cumulative domestic sales (April-January 2000- 01) stood at 65,361 cars, up 9.3 per cent over 59,773 cars sold in the same period of the previous fiscal.

Exports accounted for 4,598 units during the review period, according to a company statement. Hyundai has sold over 1.59 lakh cars since it commenced deliveries while exports stood at 4,643 units during the period.

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