If February held its head high because of the record sales figures it brought for the car manufacturers, March is not sulking either. Union Budget 2010 brought the partial rollback in excise duty reduction on cars, and then there was the price hike from few of the car manufacturers, but March kept its dignity and showed good sales numbers.

Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata Motors, Honda Siel, General Motors and Ford Motors represent more than 90 per cent of all vehicle sales in India, and if we take their combined domestic passenger vehicle sales into consideration, the numbers have gone up by 19.3 per cent in March, to 1,95,805 units, compared to 1,64,104 units during the same month last year.

February got lucky because consumers were expecting a partial roll back in the budget and pre-poned their decisions of purchasing a car. As a result, the February sales catapulted by 34 per cent, hitting 1,94,548 units as compared to 1,45,166 units in February 2009.

The last financial year started on a rather sluggish note but showed signs of recovery once the economic pace quickened. Consequently, passenger vehicle sales of these carmakers in 2009-10 shot up by 26.7 per cent, to 2,429,419 units, against 1,918,146 units in 2008-09.

Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director (sales), Toyota Kirloskar Motors, said: “The increase in sales for March can be attributed to the rise in prices that would come into effect from April 1 because of increase in input costs, the implementation of Euro-IV (emission norms) and the increase in local road tax and local sales tax.”

While most of the companies are still deciding on the increase in the car prices, Toyota and Maruti have already announced the precise amount. Toyota has increased the prices of Corolla, Innova and Fortuner models by Rs 5,000 to Rs 14,000 and Maruti Suzuki has increased the prices, ranging from Rs 1000 to Rs 7000, on A-star, Ritz, Estilo, Omni, Swift, DZire and SX4 models. Additionally, the price of Maruti Eeco has shot up by Rs 10,000 because the introductory price has been withdrawn.

Despite all these, industry experts believe that the overall growth would continue in 2010-11, but at a relatively lower rate. “The buoyancy in Tier-II and -III towns would help the industry to grow by 15 per cent in 2010-11, despite fears of increase in interest rates and high inflation,” Ankush Arora, vice president (sales and marketing), GM India, said. GM alone would register growth of 50 per cent over 2009-10, he said.

Riding on the successful launch of Eeco, the Ritz, the new Grand Vitara, Estilo and SX4, domestic sales for Maruti went up 7.7 per cent in March, at 79,530 units as compared to 73,855 units in March last year. Not only that, Maruti Suzuki became the only Indian carmaker to achieve a milestone of a million units being sold in a year.
Export figures also improved for Maruti. Against 70,023 units in 2008-09, Maruti sold 147,575 units during 2009-10.

Hyundai’s sales jumped by 27.3 per cent last month, to 31,501 units when compared to the 24,754 units sold in March 2009. This has been the highest domestic sales for Hyundai.

Thanks to Indigo Manza and Sumo Grande MKII, Tata Motors registered an increase of 17.4 per cent, at 27,761 units compared to the 23,649 units sold in March 2009.