Maruti, Hyundai post double digit sales growth in May

Report 10% sales growth in domestic market; Maruti sold 1,13,162 vehicles, while Hyundai sold 41,351 units

Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest car maker maintained a double digit sales growth of 10% in the domestic market for May in spite of a production loss of approximately 7,500 units. Nearest rival Hyundai, the second biggest player, also reported a 10% growth.

The company had to stop production at both the plants due to a stoppage in supply of car AC units from Subros. 

Subros' Manesar plant was badly damaged due to a fire on Sunday. Maruti had to stop production at its Gurgaon and Manesar plant on Monday afternoon. The Gurgaon plant is expected to resume operations today afternoon. 

The company sold 1,13,162 vehicles in domestic market last month, up 10.6% from 1,02,359 vehicles sold in May last year.

Exports, however, declined 21% to 9,872 vehicles in May. 

The domestic growth has been driven by a 11% sales increase in compact cars, driven by Baleno. The utility vehicle segment sales more than doubled to 13,596 vehicles against 5,567 vehicles mainly due to Brezza sales. 

Hyundai sold 41,351 vehicles in May, up 10.4 per cent from corresponding number of 37,450 units last year. Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president (sales and marketing) at Hyundai Motor India the market is seeing challenges of stressed rural demand and uncertainty on diesel vehicles. “Hyundai volumes grew by 10.4% on the strengths of strong performance of Creta, Elite i20 and Grand i10,” he said. 

A 10% growth by Maruti, which enjoys a 48% share in domestic passenger vehicle market, and Hyundai, which has a share of around 18%, will help the industry report a decent growth in May.

At 11:54 am, the company’s stock was trading at Rs 4,164.05, down 0.09%, on the BSE.