In fact, passenger car sales dropped to 1.655 lakh vehicles during the five-month period ended August 1998 from 1.726 lakh vehicles in the same period of last year. For the first time, Maruti sales dropped 2.1 per cent to 28,867 in the month of August from 29,486 in August in the previous year.

The passenger car segment had to settle at 7.6 per cent less sales in August as against the same period last year, as per figures released by the Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM).

Honda Siel Cars has overtaken General Motors, Mahindra Ford and Daewoo Motors by reporting higher sales of 4,180 vehicles in the five-month period ended August, thereby becoming the third largest seller of cars in India behind Maruti andHindustan Motors.

While the luxury car segment is still trying to cope with the severe recessionary trends in the market, major car manufacturers also suffered a setback. General Motors India, which produces the Opel Astra model, was the hardest hit with sales plummeting from 4,368 units in the first five months of the last fiscal to 1,652 during the corresponding period this year. Mahindra Ford has seen the volumes diminish from 3,731 to 1,665 in the same period and Daewoo Motors India recorded a sales drop from 4,580 to 3,813, AIAM said.

The new entrant Honda Siel Cars India Ltd was relatively comfortable in this category, reporting an offtake of 4,180 units in the April to August period.

Multi-utility vehicles also found it hard with all the market majors recording dropping sales in August. The market leader Telco has seen its sales slump from 5,066 units in August 1997 to just 3,000 during the corresponding period this year, AIAM said. Other major player, Mahindra and Mahindra reported a decrease inofftake from 5,650 units to 4,559 during the same period.

The languishing commercial vehicle segment in the country has continued its downtrend into the month of August with aggregate sales dropping 28.3 per cent as compared to the same period last year, the association said.

As the major players in the heavy commercial vehicle saw sales graphs spiral, market leader Telco was the worst hit with its sales dropping a massive 32.7 per cent to 3,202 in August from 4,760 in August last year. During the five-month period, Telco sales dropped to 15,012 from 28,222 in the previous period.

Other major player in the market, Ashok Leyland, was relatively better off with figures dipping to 2306 in August from 2340 last year while the light commercial vehicle segment also suffered a major setback as sales plummeted 35 per cent in August as compared to the same period last year.

While the motorcycle segment witnessed an increase in sales, two-wheeler leaders like Bajaj, Kinetic Honda were victims of a constrainedscooter market, the AIAM statistics said here today.