Beating the downturn: Car buyers lap up new SUVs amid gloom and doom

If the response to three new launches - the MG Hector, Hyundai Venue, and Mahindra XUV3OO, all launched this year - is any indication, buyers of cars are snapping them up

Sports utility vehicles (SUVs) have busted the downturn in the automobile market even as passenger vehicles are battling the decade’s worst sales.

If the response to three launches — the MG Hector, Hyundai Venue, and Mahindra XUV3OO, all this year — is any indication, buyers of cars are snapping them up.

Consider this: The MG Hector, the maiden offer of MG Motor India, has received bookings of close to 17,500 units in less than a month after it started accepting them.

Rajeev Chaba, the company's president and managing director, said if the current pace continued and there were no cancellations,