Car sales down 5.18%, passenger vehicle up 2.68% in June

New Delhi: Car sales declined by 5.18 per cent in June although passenger vehicles sales in the country grew by 2.68 percent driven by robust uptake of SUVs, including Maruti Suzuki's Vitara Brezza and Hyundai's Creta.

According to the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales stood at 2,23,454 units in June as against 2,17,620 units in the same month last year.

The growth in the PV sales were driven by utility vehicles, which saw a jump of 35.24 percent at 55,852 units as against 41,278 units in the same month last year.

On the other hand, car sales were at 1,54,237 units down from 1,62,655 units in June last year.

"Customers are showing preference for utility vehicles now. The emergence of the compact SUV segment is changing the pattern of sales growth in PV segment. While we are witnessing small growth in passenger car sales, the utility vehicle (UV) sales are seeing very high growth," SIAM Secretary General Vishnu Mathur told reporters here.

The price difference between cars and UVs have also blurred with the emergence of the compact SUVs which wasn't the case five to seven years back, he added.

During the month, market leader Maruti Suzuki India saw its domestic car sales decline by 16.25 percent to 72,551 units from 86,630 units in June last year. Its UV sales, however, jumped by 75.51 percent to 9,708 units from 5,531 units in the year-ago month.

The company had suffered production losses during the month due to supply disruption of air conditioners following fire at the Manesar plant of its supplier Subros Ltd.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) also saw its car sales dip by 7.13 percent to 32,080 in June as against 34,542 units in the same month last year. The company, however, saw its UV sales jump over four-fold to 7,726 units during the month from 1,758 units in June last year.

Utility vehicles major Mahindra & Mahindra's sales were up 9.29 percent at 15,775 units as compared with 14,433 in the year-ago period.

Tata Motors' car sales last month were up 37.45 percent at 11,705 units as against 8,516 units in June 2015 but its UV sales were down at 777 units from 1,715 units last year.

Totoya Kirloskar Motor's UV sales were up 64.15 percent at 9,099 units last month as against 5,543 units in June last year. This was mainly on the back of its newly launched Innova Crysta multi-purpose vehicle.

As per the SIAM data, total two-wheeler sales in June grew 12.26 percent to 14,68,035 units as compared with 13,07,704 units in the year-ago month.

Motorcycle sales last month increased 7.52 percent to 9,43,680 units as against 8,77,690 units a year earlier.

Mathur said that after a long time the motorcycle segment is witnessing recovery and with normal monsoon and 7th Pay Commission coming it should do better in the coming days. According to SIAM, two-wheeler market leader Hero

MotoCorp posted a marginal growth in its motorcycle sales at 4,77,540 units in June as against 4,73,518 units a year ago.

Rival Bajaj Auto's bike sales were up 9 percent at 1,68,625 units in June, as against 1,54,596 units in the same month of last year.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India's (HMSI) motorcycle sales were at 1,42,618 units as against 1,12,139 units in the same month last year, up 27.18 percent.

SIAM said scooter sales in June were up 21.32 percent at 4,49,756 units as against 3,70,710 units in the same month last year.

Segment leader HMSI posted a growth of 20.77 percent in its scooter sales at 2,65,361 units as against 2,19,720 units in the same month last year.

Chennai-based TVS Motor Co's scooter sales were at 64,352 units in June as against 57,744 units in the same month last year, up 11.44 per cent.

Hero MotoCorp also witnessed a jump of 44.92 percent in scooter sales at 60,524 units, as against 41,761 units a year ago.

Sales of commercial vehicles were up 5.63 percent to 56,032 units in June, SIAM said.

Vehicle sales across categories registered a growth of 10.7 percent to 17,95,894 units from 16,22,254 units in June 2015, it added.