Healthy monsoon, festive season drive August automobile sales (Roundup)

Above average monsoon, along with festive season and waning impact of the GST led to automobile manufacturers on Friday reporting healthy sales figures for August.

Passenger car major Maruti Suzuki India's total August sales rose 23.8 per cent to 163,701 units, from 132,211 units during the corresponding month of 2016.

Maruti Suzuki India's domestic sales edged higher by 26.7 per cent to 152,000 units from 119,931 units.

Similarly, Hyundai Motor India too reported a rise in its domestic sales by nine per cent to 47,103 units from 43,201 units sold during August 2016.

"Hyundai volume with 47,103 units grew by 9 per cent on the strong acceptance of the Next Gen Verna with more than 7,000 bookings within 10 days of launch along with strong demand for Grand i10, Elite i20 and Creta," said Rakesh Srivastava, Director of Sales and Marketing, HMIL.

Besides, Tata Motors' passenger and commercial vehicle sales, including exports, for August 2017 rose by 14 per cent to 48,988 units from 43,105 vehicles sold in August 2016.

Mayank Pareek, President, Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Tata Motors, said: "Tata Motors sales continue to grow on a positive course on the back of strong performance of the new generation cars like Tiago, Tigor and Hexa. With Ganesh Chaturthi, we have entered the festive season and we expect the growth momentum to continue."

Leading SUV manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) reported a rise of four per cent in its overall sales for August which increased to 42,116 units from 40,591 units sold during the corresponding month of last year.

"This upsurge in demand has been due to good monsoons and our rural penetration," said Rajan Wadhera, President, Automotive Sector, M&M.

"As we get into festive season, we are confident of a good growth over the next couple of months, on the back of our diversified product portfolio," he added.

Manufacturer's of two-and-three wheelers also logged healthy sales growth last month.

Industry major Hero MotoCorp achieved its highest-ever sales for any single month during August 2017 at 678,797 units. The company's YoY sales rose by 10 per cent from 616,424 units sold in August 2016.

Similarly, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India's sales breached the 6 lakh-mark in a "single month for the first time".

"Historic August 2017 saw total sales grow 26 per cent from 492,368 units in August'16 to 622,180 units," the company said in a statement.

Two-and three-wheeler major Bajaj Auto reported a rise of three per cent in its total sales, including exports, for the month under review to 335,031 units. Overall exports were higher by seven per cent to 134,372 units from 125,033 units shipped out during the corresponding month of 2016.

"On the back of FY17, we were quite cautious but right from the beginning of this current fiscal... on exports," S.Ravikumar, President for Business Development and Assurance at Bajaj Auto told BTVi in an interview.

"For the month of September we have good visibilty, we should be exporting around 140-150 thousand units in the month of September itself, and closing the half year about 6.7 lakh units in exports."

In addition, two-and three-wheeler maker TVS Motor Company registered a sales growth of 16 per cent last month to 317,563 units up from 274,303 units sold in August 2016.

On its part, Suzuki Motorcycle India recorded its highest-ever sale for a single month clocking 56,745 units at a year-on-year growth of 54.3 per cent.

India Yamaha Motor registered a growth of 4 per cent in its domestic sales (including Nepal) during August 2017 to 77,887 units compared to 74,868 units in August 2016.

--IANS

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