Already in dire straits after registering a decline in sales of 8.3 per cent in October 2008, passenger car market leader Maruti Suzuki sales plummeted further to 27.40 per cent in November at the end of what has been a troubling festive season. The company sold only 47,103 cars in November 2008 as against 64,885 vehicles in the same month in 2007. Tata Motors though it sells only a fourth of the total numbers of cars Maruti does can be seen to be in even more trouble having failed to record positive sales growth figures since August of this year. Despite the launch of their new Indica, the company sold only 14,327 cars in November 2008 a decline of 12 per cent over the same period last year when they sold 16,322 cars. Only Honda Siel Cars India’s new model of the Honda City seems to be doing well enabling the company to sell 5,090 cars this month against 4,425 cars in November 2007 thus resulting in a 15 per cent growth in sales.

Two-wheeler sales were down sharply, reflecting both an accelerated slowdown in demand and also the immediate correction in dealer inventories which industry insiders say will continue into December 2008.

Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto and TVS who had so far shown tremendous resilience to the vagaries of the global and domestic economy have finally succumbed to the pressures of the credit crisis. Each company posted a minimum 25 per cent drop in sales in from September to October, and for most TVS’s sales declined from 9.65 per cent to 12.70 per cent selling only 98402 units this November.

Even the infallibly reliable Hero Honda has been brought to it’s knees. After sales dropped from a positive growth of 22.50 per cent in September 2008 to a negative growth of 3.4 per cent in October 2008, this month the market leader is the only company of it’s nearest competitors to post an almost flat but still positive growth in sales of 2.8 per cent. Bajaj Auto continues to be unable to control the free fall it’s sales have gone into. After posting a 34 per cent decline in sales in October 2008 over sales in October 2007, in November 2008 they sold on 1,32,421 units over 2,11,600 units in the same month of the previous financial year.