India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India said its monthly auto sales jumped 15% in February, after a disappointing growth of only 4.8% in January.
The company reported total auto sales of 1.50 lakh in February compared to 1.30 lakh in the same month of last year. In the previous month of January, it had reported total auto sales of 1.51 lakh.
The growth rate is above average for this year.
With the latest number, total auto sales for the first 11 months of the current financial year has reported a growth of 13.3% to 16.19 lakh, giving an average of 1.47 lakh vehicles sold per month during the current year.
As expected, the biggest growth spurt in February was seen in the car category that includes the likes of Swift, Dzire, Baleno and Celerio.
This category, which is called ‘compact’ by Maruti, saw an increase of 39% in sales to 65,213 cars sold during February.
The category has seen the introduction of new models of Swift and Dzire, India’s highest selling car models.
The second growth driver for the company continued to be the SUV/UV category. This segment saw a jump of 13.8% in sales to 20,324 units during the month.
The mini category, which at one time used to drive the company’s sales, continued to languish with sales increasing only 2% to 33,789 units.
Total domestic sales for February was up 14.2% at 1.38 lakh, while total exports was up 25% on year at 11,924 units.