Author: Sudan_NFS

Hyundai Motor India, the country’s second largest car manufacturer and the largest passenger car exporter, began the year on a positive note as both domestic and overseas sales recorded a positive growth. While domestic sales registered a growth of 40.8%, exports increased by 42.6% and overall growth stood at 41.6% for the month ending January, 2010.
HMIL’s total sales for January, 2010 stood at 52,635 units as against 37,171 units in January, 2009 registering a cumulative growth of 41.6%. The domestic sales growth accounted for 29,601 units (which is the highest since 1998 when HMIL launched the Santro in September) as against 21,016 units in January, 2009 while the exports grew from 16,155 units in January, 2009 to 23,034 units in January, 2010.

The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has surpassed its Japanese parent Suzuki Motor Corporation in overall production during 2009.
During 2009, Maruti
Suzuki rolled out 9,66,399 units, while its parent Suzuki Motor Corporation produced only 9,08,302 cars, according to informed sources.
"Maruti Suzuki manufactured 9,66,399 units during the calender year 2009 and its sales for the whole year was 9,67,581 units. Both these figures are higher than Suzuki’s production figure of 9,08,302 units," the source informed.
Of the total sales in 2009, Maruti Suzuki sold 8,36,893 units in the domestic market, with the rest 1,30,688 units being exports. Its flagship export model A-Star was the biggest contributor to the overseas sales.
In the domestic market, the small car Alto topped the list with 2.4 lakh sales, followed by the WagonR with sales of 1.4 lakh units during reporting period.
Maruti Suzuki has currently 13 models in its portfolio– the M-800, Omni, Alto, WagonR, Estilo, A-star, Ritz, Swift, Dzire, the sedan SX4, Gypsy, the SUV Grand Vitara and the recently launched family car Eeco.
Late last week, the car maker had announced an investment of Rs 1,700 crore to expand the production capacity at its Manesar plant near Gurgaon by 2.5 lakh units annually by 2012.
The development comes at a time when Suzuki Corp is on track to achieve a cumulative sales of 20 million units (two crore) in the Japanese domestic market since beginning of operations 55 years ago.
In a press release issued earlier this month in Tokyo, Suzuki said it will cross the mark in late January. Suzuki first ventured into the car market in 1955 with the Suzulight
model, which is the forerunner of today’s mini-vehicles.
In comparison, Maruti has already sold 8 million (80 lakh) units in the last 27 years.
Maruti enjoys over 50 per cent market share in the domestic market, dominated by small cars, and has been market leader since its launch in the 1980s.