November car sales rise 7%...Bike sales zoom 22%

Domestic sales of passenger cars rose by 7% to 171,131 vehicles in November 2011 as against 159,939 units sold in the same month last year, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said on Thursday. Car sales registered their steepest decline in nearly 11 years in October, sinking by ~24% as a crippling labour unrest hit output at market leader Maruti Suzuki India. Hardening interest rates, rising fuel prices and increasing cost of vehicles have hit car sales this fiscal. Motorcycle sales grew by ~22.70% to 869,070 units during the month under review versus 708,476 units in the corresponding month last year, according to the SIAM data. Total two-wheeler sales were up 25.3% to 1,163,294 units from 928,660 units sold in November 2010, the SIAM data showed. Commercial Vehicle (CV) (trucks and buses) sales jumped ~35% to 66,264 units from 49,087 units sold in the year-ago period, SIAM said. Total automobile sales across categories rose by 22.2% to 1,489,714 units in November 2011 from 1,218,885 units in the same month last year, it added.

Car makers in India may just break even in the ongoing fiscal year, the industry body warned today and said that it would cut its sales outlook for the year. "During the auto expo next month, we are going to revise our sales projections for the fiscal... I feel the passenger car segment will again be downgraded," said Sugato Sen, senior director of the SIAM. "The current estimate is 2-4%. I don't see that happening. We may just break even," he said. The SIAM has already cut its growth forecast twice this year, slashing it to 2-4% in October from its July forecast of 10-12%. At the start of FY12, the SIAM had projected a growth rate of 16-18% in domestic sales of passenger cars. The rise in November sales was partly owing to a low base of last year. "The base was low specifically for passenger cars, which created quantitative growth," said Sen. "There is some revival in demand. But this is not enough to turn around the industry." During April-November this fiscal, domestic car sales declined by 3.5% to 1,219,509 units from 1,264,142 units in the year-ago period. "We may not see a decline in car sales for the entire fiscal. The numbers may be just at the same level of last fiscal," Sen said. The industry body expects car sales to improve in the first few months of 2012, Sen said.