MUL sales cross 1.63 lakh units

MUMBAI, October 23: India's leading car maker, Maruti Udyog Ltd, has managed to tide over the prevailing recession in the auto industry by ...

MUMBAI, October 23: India’s leading car maker, Maruti Udyog Ltd, has managed to tide over the prevailing recession in the auto industry by recording sales of over 1.63 lakh vehicles in the first six months of fiscal 1997-98, up from previous year’s sales of over 1.47 lakh cars. Sales of its popular Esteem model, however, fell from 12,452 units recorded in the fiscal 1997 to 9,259 in the current fiscal.

In order to boost sales of its premium segment model, Maruti is re-launching the Esteem model with various cosmetic changes. The company has set an ambitious target of more than 4 lakh cars by the end of current fiscal.

Maruti’s good performance comes at a time when Telco’s sales fell from 93,320 in the first half of the previous fiscal to 77,094 in the first half of current fiscal. Bajaj Auto also reported declining sales of of 6.25 lakh as against 7.22 lakh units recorded in the first six months of previous year.

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The country’s best-selling automobile model — Maruti 800 — recorded sales of 91,693 units in the first-half of current fiscal, up from 87,719 units recorded in same period of previous fiscal. "The re-launch of Maruti 800 has helped sales," officials said.

Slowdown in production of Fiat’s Uno helped the sales of Zens to grow, officials said.. Zen sold over 32,000 cars during the period under review as compared to 21,567 sold in the same period of fiscal 1997. Sales of Omni also increased to 26,437 units in the first six months from 21,206 while Gypsy declined to 2,904 units from 3,034 units in the period under review, sources said. The company is toying with the idea to launch Gypsy with a diesel engine sourced from Peugeot.

Analysts say that the company could have done better if it had not faced production constraints. "If Maruti wants to hold on to its 80 per cent share in the auto industry, capacity expansions are a must," say auto analysts.

The company had planned a Rs 1,500 crore expansion programme , but the plan has bogged down due to the fight between the 50:50 JV partners — Suzuki and Government of India.