Maruti sales bite dust as Uno zips past

MUMBAI, March 10: Maruti Udyog Limited's passenger car sales continued its south-bound journey slipping by 13 per cent in February 1999 o...

MUMBAI, March 10: Maruti Udyog Limited’s passenger car sales continued its south-bound journey slipping by 13 per cent in February 1999 over the same month last year even as Ind Auto Limited, riding on the demand wave for its stripped down Uno, whizzed past competition.

The new entrants and the likes of Hyundai, Honda Siel and Mitsubishi were, in fact, the only companies to have witnessed a positive growth in sales during the month, latest industry estimates revealed.

Maruti could manage to sell only 25,177 units of passenger cars during the entire month, which was 13 per cent lower than 29,146 units in the same month last year and 16 per cent lower than 30,027 units in February 1997. The company’s total sales during the first 11 months of the current fiscal stood at 271,578 units.

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Ind Auto Limited, riding on the sudden surge in demand for its Uno cars following the massive price cuts, recorded sales of 1,701 units during the month from 728 units in January 1999.

Mercedes Benz India Limited’s E-Classsales dropped to a mere 30 units during the month, down 80 per cent from 151 in February 1998. Meanwhile, Daewoo Motors India Limited, despite the launch of the `big small car’ Matiz failed to perform on the Indian roads and ended the month with a 6.4 per cent drop in total sales during the month. The company could offload only 160 Cielos and 700 Matiz during the period as against 919 units of only Cielo in February 1998.

Pal-Peugeot seems to be out of the race now not managing to sell a single unit as against a retail of 162 units of Peugeot 309 last year.

General Motors India Limited sales also witnessed an erosion dropping by 29.5 per cent to touch 160 units of Opel Astra from 227 last year.

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Telco car sales also looked southwards at a mere 75 units, down by over 72 per cent from 275 units in February last year. Ford India Limited’s Escort sales also dropped to 89 units in the second month of the current calendar year.

Honda Siel Cars India Limited was the star performer in the entire industry withsales shooting up by 63 per cent year-on-year. As many as 604 units of Honda City were sold during the month from 369 units last year.

Hindustan Motors sold around 1,109 passenger cars during February 1999 while Hyundai Motors offloaded 2,500 units of santro and Mitsubishi-HM sold 516 units of Lancer.

During the first 11 months of the current fiscal, Hindustam Motors sold around 14,798 units followed by Hyundai with 13,699 units and Ind Auto with 11,635 units. Daewoo sold around 9114 cars during the period while Honda Siel offloaded 8,272 city cars.