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Sales soar but Maruti's market-share dips

Maruti Udyog Limited's market share in the passenger car segment for the first ten months of the fiscal year 1999-2000 dropped to 63.4 per cent from 80.99 per cent in the comparable period last year, despite a 22.5 per cent rise in sales.

Hyundai Motors India Limited continued to race ahead on the sales track, offloading 59,773 units during the ten-month period to corner a 11.7 per cent market share, latest figures released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) revealed.

The total passenger car market grew 56.3 per cent during the ten-month period to 508,934 units from 325,562 units a year ago.

Of the total passenger cars sold in the April-January period, MUL accounted for 323,058 vehicles. Telco took the number three position on the chart with total sales of 43,053 units and a market share of 8.45 per cent.

Daewoo Motors India Limited sold 29,549 units during the period, up from 8,249 units a year ago and ended with a 5.8 per cent market share.

Hindustan Motors, Ind Auto and Ford India were the only other players to have registered a growth in sales over the previous year. HM sold 21,093 units, while Ind Auto dispatched 17,649 units and Ford sold 4,523 cars.

PAL-Peugeot witnessed a near erosion in sales of its Peugeot 309 model, managing to sell only nine units as against 434 units a year ago. Mercedes-Benz India Limited's e-class also failed to impress buyers and sales dropped from 1,012 units to 748 units.

Fiat India sold 60 units during the period as against 2,574 units a year earlier. General Motor's Opel Astra sales slipped marginally to 2,036 units from 2,962 units.

MUL led the growth in the multi-utility vehicle segment as well recording a 22.5 per cent surge in sales during the April-January 1999-2000 period. The company sold 5,853 units of Gypsy and Omni during the period as against 4,75 units a year ago.

Mahindra and Mahindra also recorded a growth in its MUV sales from 51,504 units to 55,404 units. Bajaj Tempo sales grew 8.3 percent from 4,346 units to 4,711 units.

Hindustan Motors and Telco were the only players to have recorded sales drops during the period. HM's MUV sales dropped 12 per cent to 2,020 units, while Telco's utility vehicle sales slipped 2.7 per cent to 24,988 units.

In the bi-wheeler segment, Bajaj Auto Limited sold 472,312 scooters for the April-January period, a 9.1 per cent drop from 519,643 scooters in the corresponding period a year ago. While Kinetic Motor Company Limited rose its scooter sales by 18.6 percent to 96,830 units, LML Limited could only sell 23,9043 units during the period, down by 13 per cent. On the other hand, TVS Suzuki Limited sold 104,173 units, a 26 per cent increase compared to the corresponding period last year.

However, total scooter sales dipped by 4.47 per cent to 104,04,11 units.

In the motorcycle segment, Bajaj sold 335,140 units, a 13 percent surge over the previous year's ten-month period. While Escorts Yamaha Motor Limited's sales rose by 37 per cent to 189,640 motorcycles, Hero Honda Motors Limited sold 609,513 units, an improvement by 39.9 per cent.

While Royal Enfield Motors witnessed a slip by 0.3 per cent to 20,102 units, TVS Suzuki was able to increase its sales by 22.7 per cent to 266,808 motorcycles. Total motorcycles sold during the first ten months of 1999-2000 were 1,421,203 units, a 28.4 per cent rise over 1,106,249 units a year earlier.

UNI

The Maruti Saga

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