The festive season in India was unable to ignite any spark in the car sales in the month of October. Though there was an increase in the sales figures for most of the companies and dealers and car manufacturers were able to clear their inventories, the sales figures did not reach the expected figures for most of the companies.
According to the sales figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the domestic sales figures dropped by 6.6 percent in October 2008. The figures dropped to three years low of 98,900 units from 105,877 units in the same month last year. This has been the steepest drop in the last three years.
As financing still remains the most important factor to boost the sales, the auto industry in India is still hopeful for the next year. Companies like Maruti and Hyundai have started targeting the rural India and the smaller cities of the country. These cities contribute significantly to the sales figures and the small car segment greatly benefits from these cities and rural areas.
Till now Indian auto sales had been witnessing a double digit growth in the country but the cumulative growth for past seven months has now slid down to 5.64 percent only. The earlier forecast by SIAM had been a projected growth of 12-15 percent.
