Maruti Alto is India's highest selling car

New Delhi: Maruti Udyog's 800cc hatchback Alto has overtaken its older sibling the Maruti 800 to become India's largest selling car last month with sales of 22,294 units.

Maruti Udyog sold 22,294 units of the Alto the highest-ever monthly sales for any model and make in India. Maruti 800 holds the previous record of highest sales — 20,687 units in March 03).

In October 2006 MUL sold 55,894 vehicles registering an increase of 11 pc over 50,308 units in the corresponding month last year. MUL's total sales including exports stood at 60,163 vehicles, including 4,269 units of exports.

However MUL's sales were driven largely on the back of the Alto, WagonR and Swift while the mid-size Esteem and the entry-level M800 pulling down overall sales growth. MUL's sales in the domestic entry-level B segment (Alto, Wagon-R, Zen, and Swift) rose by 23.5 per cent and in the C segment (Omni, Versa) grew by 21.6 per cent in October 2006 as compared to sales in October 2005.

In the entry level segment (M800) the company's sales went down by 30.1 per cent and in the A3 segment (Baleno and Esteem) it fell by 11.7 per cent during the month as compared to the year-ago period.
In the MUV segment (Gypsy, Vitara), sales went down by 42.6 per cent during the month compared to sales in October 2005.

With the exception of Tata Motors, carmakers had a cheerful October posting double-digit sales growth. The Tata Group company actually registered a decline of 2.8 per cent at 16,726 units which it attributed to a fire at the company plant in Pune last month.

Other companies that recorded sales growth for the period include the second largest carmaker Hyundai Motor India, with total sales of 18,603 units, up 18 per cent over 15,801 units sold in the same month last year; and General Motor India registered a 12 per cent growth selling 3,153 units as against 2,829 units in October 2005.

GM sold 2,011 units of the Tavera and 902 units of Chevrolet Aveo in October. Ford India sold 3,336 units, up 142 per cent over the same month last fiscal. Japanese carmaker Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) sold 5,566 units registering a growth of 343 per cent largely due to the success of the new City and newly launched Civic and a low sales-volume base.