Excise duty drags April auto sales, two-wheelers up.

The excise duty hike dragged domestic auto sales during April even though the country’s largest auto maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) driven by spurt in sales of Ertiga and DZire posted a growth of 4 per cent across segments at 90,255 units compared to 87,144 units in April last year. However, most automakers including Tata Motors witnessed a decline in the sales of the passenger cars.

“We continue to maintain a tough outlook for at least the first six months of the year and this could possibly ease once the interest rates come down may be in the second half of the fiscal,” Vishnu Mathur of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) explained reiterating the auto industry’s outlook post the two percentage point hike in the Budget.

While the country’s second largest auto maker Hyundai will release its figures on Wednesday, Tata Motors witnessed a decline of 3 per cent in its passenger vehicles segment as sales during April were 22,658 units compared to 23,387 units last April.

However, riding on the back of the customer preference for diesel vehicles, utility major Mahindra & Mahindra posted a robust sales of 33 per cent for its passenger vehicles, including Scorpio, XUV500, Xylo, Bolero and Verito which sold 20,558 units last month as against 15,459 units in April last year.

General Motors India said its April sales this year were not on expected lines as sales declined 20.34 per cent at 8,005 units compared with 10,050 units it sold in last April. And driven by the success of its Brio on top of the low base effect Honda Siel Cars India registered a growth of 252 per cent in April selling 7,075 units against 2,012 units last year.

In the commercial vehicles segment, Tata Motors recorded a 6 per cent decline in domestic sales in April to 34,647 units, compared to 36,738 units in the same month a year ago.

Light commercial vehicle sales last month stood at 24,818 units, up 9 per cent, while medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales stood at 9,829 units — down 29.5 per cent compared to April, 2011.

Meanwhile, the excise hike seemed to have shifted demand in favour of the two wheeler segment which experienced an overall healthy growth as the country’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp reported the highest ever monthly 6.66 per cent increase in its sales for April at 5,51,557 units.

Chennai-based TVS Motor recorded a 4 per cent growth last month at 171,551 units. Its scooter sales stood at 35,833 units, up 2 per cent, and motorcycle sales accounted for 67,966 units.

Yamaha Motor reported 4.4 per cent hike in domestic sales at 26,944 units as compared to April 2011.

Source : indianexpress.com