A positive story from the gloom: Automakers ambitious on overseas expansion

The slowdown in the domestic market has whetted the overseas ambition of the industry

Once a booming car market, India is now in the grips of a prolonged slowdown, forcing automakers from Maruti Suzuki to Toyota Kirloskar to cut production or halt manufacturing temporarily to clear the pile-up in inventory. Since the start of the year, companies have been struggling to sell cars despite deep discounts, let alone increase demand.

But there is a positive story emerging from the gloom. The slowdown has whetted the ambition of automakers to expand their foothold abroad. So even as domestic passenger car sales declined 29.4 per cent between April and August this year, exports grew 6.5 per