Festive car sales remain flat in Gujarat market

New launches draw customers, while routine sales during the month remains flat

Pooja Jalgaonkar, a resident of west Ahmedabad, has postponed her decision to buy a car this Diwali. "We will wait till December, when most car makers will offer discounts. We had planned to buy our new car during Dhanteras, however, its seems like it would be more prudent to wait for a while", she says.

The festivities are a little lackluster this year around for car dealers across Ahmedabad. The high interest rates coupled with spiralling fuel prices have taken the sheen off festive buying. The general sentiment in the market is negative, however, new launches have thrown in some fresh cheer in pockets.

A leading Hyundai dealer in the city said that routine sales are flat compared to last year same period, all Hyundai  dealers combined in Ahmedabad would be selling around 30-40 cars per day. "Sales had picked up on Dusshera day when we alone did deliveries of around 650-700 cars on that day. Net Hyundai cars sold in the market that day would be over 2000 units. However, this is comparable to last year same period", said Shashin Shah, director, Yogi Autocare.

Hyundai sales in the city have been driven mainly by the Eon, which accounts for around 20 per cent of net sales.

A major Toyota dealership in Ahmedabad informed that routine sales has picked up during the festive times from what around 30-35 cars per day around three months back. "Around 900 cars were sold during the Navratri month. While this is a good number, in year-on-year comparison, the growth would be hardly 10 per cent", Ajit Mehta, chairman, Infinium Toyota said. His dealership alone had delivered around 650 cars during Navratri and he claimed that it was one of the highest in the country that month. Innova and the Fortuner are leading the pack for Toyota here in Ahmedabad.

In comparison, Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra & Mahindra have done reasonably well mainly on the back of fresh launches right before the festivals.

Maruti sold around 10,000 cars across Gujarat during October, the Navratri month, of which around 3700 cars were sold in Ahmedabad. "The new Alto has been received well by customers. We sold around 1900 Altos last month, of which around 1600 were the new Alto 800 model. It has brought back fresh enquiries and fresh bookings", said Vishal Sharma, regional manager, Maruti Suzuki India.

He, however, added that the momentum is yet to build up for Diwali. "We expect the bookings to pick up in the last three days run-up to Diwali which is next week", Sharma said adding that so far the company has delivered close to 2000 cars in November across Gujarat, of which around 800 were delivered in Ahmedabad.

Mahindra had strategically launched its multi-utility vehicle Quanto, right ahead of Dusshera and Diwali, and this has certainly boosted the company's sales in the region. It has managed to sell over 2300 cars during October, up 35 per cent from last year's 1700 cars in the same month. "Sales in the Ahmedabad market was up 28 per cent. We sold around 360 Quantos and over 350 XUV500s last month", informed Jacob Varghese, senior general manager, west zone, M&M.

Coming to sales of luxury cars in the city, Paras Somani, executive director, Benchmark Cars, the Mercedes dealer in Ahmedabad, said that "The overall luxury car sales in the city has grown by 15 per cent." His dealership has seen the customers return to showroom, queuing for the two new launches from the Mercedes stable, the M-Class  SUV and the B-Class sports tourer.