Maruti market share dips to 63.4%

Maruti market share dips to 63.4%
EEB & AGENCIES

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI, FEB 22: Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL)'s market share in the passenger car segment for the first 10 months of the fiscal year 1999-2000 dropped to 63.4 per cent from 80.99 per cent in the comparable period last year despite a 22.5 per cent rise in sales.

Hyundai Motors India Ltd continued to race ahead on the sales track, offloading 59,773 units during the 10-month period to corner an 11.7 per cent market share, latest figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) revealed. The total passenger car market grew 56.3 per cent during the ten-month period to 508,934 units from 325,562 units a year ago.

Of the total passenger cars sold in the April-January period, MUL accounted for 323,058 vehicles. Telco took the number three position on the chart with total sales of 43,053 units and a market share of 8.45 per cent. Daewoo Motors sold 29,549 units during the period, up from 8,249 units a year ago and ended with a 5.8 per cent market share.

Hindustan Motors, Ind Auto and Ford India were the other players to have registered a growth in sales over the previous year. HM sold 21,093 units, while Ind Auto despatched 17,649 units and Ford sold 4,523 cars.

PAL-Peugeot witnessed a near erosion in sales of its Peugeot 309 model, managing to sell only nine units as against 434 units a year ago. Mercedes-Benz's E-class also failed to impress buyers and sales dropped from 1,012 units to 748 units.

Fiat India sold 60 units during the period as against 2,574 units a year earlier. General Motors' Opel Astra sales slipped marginally to 2,036 units from 2,962 units. Honda Siel's City sales also dipped to 7,383 units from 7,668 units a year earlier.

Maruti Udyog led the growth in the multi-utility vehicle (MUV) segment by recording a 22.5 per cent surge in sales during the April-January 1999-2000 period. The company sold 5,853 units of Gypsy and Omni during the period as against 4,755 units a year ago.

Mahindra and Mahindra also recorded a growth in its MUV sales from 51,504 units to 55,404 units. Bajaj Tempo sales grew 8.3 per cent from 4,346 units to 4,711 units.

Hindustan Motors and Telco were the only players to have recorded sales drops during the period. HM's MUV sales dropped 12 per cent to 2,020 units while Telco's utility vehicle sales slipped 2.7 per cent to 24,988 units.

In the bi-wheeler segment, Bajaj Auto sold 472,312 scooters for the April-January period, a 9.1 per cent drop from 519,643 scooters in the corresponding period a year ago. While Kinetic Motor Company Limited increased its scooter sales by 18.6 per cent to 96,830 units, LML could only sell 2,39,043 units during the period, down by 13 per cent. On the other hand, TVS Suzuki Limited sold 104,173 units, a 26 per cent increase compared to the corresponding period last year. However, total scooter sales dipped by 4.47 per cent to 104,04,11 units.

In the motorcycle segment, Bajaj sold 335,140 units, a 13 per cent surge over the previous year's 10-month period. While Escorts Yamaha Motor's sales rose by 37 per cent to 189,640 motorcycles, Hero Honda sold 609,513 units, an improvement by 39.9 per cent. While Royal Enfield Motors witnessed a slip by 0.3 per cent to 20,102 units, TVS Suzuki was able to increase its sales by 22.7 per cent to 266,808 motorcycles.

Total motorcycles sold during the first 10 months of 1999-2000 were 1,421,203 units, a 28.4 per cent rise over 1,106,249 units a year earlier.

In the mopeds segment, TVS Suzuki gained a 13 per cent increase in sales to 308,489 units, while Majestic Auto could sell only 92,223 units, down by 14 per cent as compared to last year's 1,07,275 units.

Kinetic Engineering too registered a 6.9 per cent drop to 1,25,226 mopeds. But Escorts Yamaha Motor, which sold 7,941 mopeds in April-January 1998-99, could sell only 72 units during the ten-month period this year. On the other hand, Bajaj Auto recorded a 42 per cent jump over the last year's ten-month period, selling 57,575 mopeds.

The total bi-wheelers sold during April-January 1999-2000 were 3,045,199 units as compared to 27,57,900 units in the previous ten-month period.

TELCO up 8% on car unit hive-off talk

MUMBAI: Shares of India's leading truck maker Tata Engineering and Locomotive (TELCO) jumped eight per cent in Tuesday trade on talks that it may soon announce plans to spin off its loss-making passenger car division, dealers said. TELCO shares rose Rs 13.25 higher than 179.10 at the Bombay Exchange, hitting the upper end of the circuit-breaker for the second consecutive day.

"There is a rumour in the market that the car project may be hived off into a new company where a foreign partner may pick up stake," said a dealer. Dealers said the spin-off would boost the firm's bottomline. The passenger car business has been a drag on its performance with the firm reporting a higher net loss of Rs 60.36 crore in the third quarter of 1999-2000 (April-March). If the spin-off happens, all the losses would be transferred to the new company, dealers added.