Foreign car sales in India drastically down from last year

MUMBAI, MAY 7: The performance of foreign car majors in India had been extremely dismal with sales of cars sagging at an alarming pace during the year ended March 1999, reveals statistics of All India Association of Industries (AIAM). Ford Motors and General Motors have witnessed their sales falling from 6451 and 7548 units in the fiscal 1999 to 3233 and 3524 units in fiscal 1998 respectively.

While predicting yet another gloomy fiscal – irrespective of new launches – auto analysts say that these global giants have failed to gauge the potential of Indian markets correctly by launching wrong models at the wrong time. Mercedes Benz saw its sales falling drastically to 1,116 units from 3,042 units.

The expensive models targeted at the higher segments of the market turned out to be the cause of worries of these companies. Ford’s Escort, GM’s Opel Astra and Mercedes Benz’s E2200 and E230 cost over Rs eight lakh while the market was ripe only for Rs 3-lakh models. “Therefore, it was not surprising when Telco and Fiat managed to get over a lakh bookings for their models,” say industry sources.