Raging on: Trend-breaker July brings flood of auto buyers

Even as the domestic automobile industry complained of component shortage restricting its pace of growth, car and two-wheeler sales during July sped along with Maruti Suzuki India Ltd and Bajaj Auto posting their best-ever monthly sales during the period.

Maruti's domestic sales surged to 90,114 units during the month, a shade better than its previous best achieved in May. Bajaj, too, reported sales of 2.8 lakh units, its best ever in a month as high disposable incomes and a booming domestic economy drove more and more customers to showrooms.

Other manufacturers, such as Hyundai, Hero Honda, General Motors, Toyota, TVS and Ford were not that far behind either in sales. Hyundai's domestic sales grew 24 per cent while Ford India's sales grew four-fold on the back of its first small car launched in March.

Normally, automobile sales stagnate with the onset of monsoon due to reduced economic activity, But a spate of new launches and refreshes have kept up demand this year.

'The recently launched Verna Transform along with the tried and trusted Accent helped us consolidate our position in the mid segment,' said Arvind Saxena, director (marketing and sales), Hyundai. 'The increased demand clearly shows that the recently launched Verna Transform has been well received by our customers. The market continues to be positive and in the next quarter we expect the trend to continue with the festive season.'