Car makers in the country, report sluggish sales closing FY15

Echoing the sluggish recovery in Indian automobile market, namely carmakers Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai observed wavering growth in March, while others like Ford and Mahindra posted slump in sales during the month.
Honda Cars India, although, announced a hike of 23 per cent in March counting on the success of its sedans Amaze and City.
Maruti Suzuki India quoted its pet sales elevated by 1.4 per cent during the month counting to 1,03,719 units as against 1,02,269 units in March 2014.
Sale of mini-segment cars, like, Alto and WagonR, raised some-what to 40,159 units as compared to 40,085 units, while sales of compact segment comprising Swift, Estilo, Ritz, Dzire depressed by 12.5 per cent to 38,710 units in March.
The company, however, posted its highest ever sales in a fiscal year in 2014-15 at 12,92,415 units, up 11.9 per cent from 11,55,041 units in 2013-14. The previous high was in 2010-11, when the company had sold 12,71,005 units.
As quoted by Mr. R S Kalsi, Executive Marketing director for Maruti Suzuki, that while the industry grew for 4-percent, the company had a growth of around 11 percent. According to him the new models flooding the Indian market has made a difference in making the market more challenging now. But the brand has like made a lot of efforts to expand the business over in both the rural and urban areas, that has indeed given benefit.
Rival Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) managed to sell 39,525 units last month compared with 35,003 units in March 2014, with inflation of 12.9 per cent.
Mr. Rakesh Srivastava (Sr. V.P. Sales and marketing ) Hyundai, stated that the market went through an emotional patch . "The 2015 outlook seems challenging as there is low traction with weak delivery on macro-economic parameters and low consumer sentiments."
Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL), however, had an impressive conduct in March registering its highest ever monthly pet sales of 22,696 units, up 23 per cent as compared to 18,426 units in the same month last year.
The company also posted its highest ever annual domestic sales of 1,89,062 units during FY15 recording 41 per cent growth over last financial year.
HCIL senior vice president-marketing Jnaneswar Sen said.
"The financial 2014-2015 has been extremely prosperous for HCIL. We are thankful to our customers for the great response we have achieved for Mobilio launched in July last year and their continued interest for other models."
Likewise, Ford India's in house sales went down by 17.35 per cent at 5,253 units last month from 6,356 units a year ago.
" Ford India executive director-marketing, sales and service Anurag Mehrotra said, With the economic recovery being slower than calculated and a high interest rate and inflation environment, customers continue to customize their unrestricted spends,"
General Motors India reported a 35.5 per cent deflation in sales at 4,257 units in March as against 6,601 units in the same month last year.
"Despite the marginal reductions in repo rates earlier this year, the green shoots are still not visible in the economy as we haven't really seen the banks passing on the reductions entirely to consumers," General Motors India vice president P Balendran said.
This, coupled with the economic slug, contributes to hold the industry performance in the red and a possible turnaround is still not expected in the coming months, he added.