Motown : June 2014

Fearing a lapse of excise benefits by June end and enticed by attractive discounts, customers flocked to showrooms of select car markers, pushing up sales by 31% for Maruti Suzuki in June. Car sales posted its second straight monthly gain with most major players such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda Cars posting robust sales in June as customers lapped up incentives to buy cars, signaling a positive turnaround in coming months.
Maruti Suzuki sold 1,00,964 units in June against 77,002 units in June last year. The company performed well on strong sales of its compact models like Maruti 800, Alto and WagonR, that rose 52% to 47,618 units last month, while its popular compact sedan Dzire rose by 27.4% during the month to 15,990 units. Maruti's exports also surged 58% to 11,809 units last month as compared to 7,453 units in June last year.
The surge in June sales is partly due to extensive cash discount and exchange offers by carmakers on their best-selling models to boost sales. For instance, Maruti is offering its customers a cash discount of  Rs.55,000-Rs.60,000 per vehicle on Alto. And discount on Swift has been running as high as Rs.30,000-.Rs.35,000 per vehicle. Renault has introduced a cash discount Rs.25, 000 on Duster in the last two months.
In February , the government provided sops in the form of excise duty cuts to induce car buyers. The move prompted price cuts by carmakers and demand increased as many customers advanced purchases. In the fag end of June, the government extended the interim excise-duty concessions until December, giving much-needed relief to the industry and also raised hopes of a positive turnaround in the next few months after the market shrunk for two straight years. Originally , these benefits were to expire by June 30. Car sales grew in the range of 14% in June over last year, after May witnessed a growth of 3%. Car sales surged after 15 successive months of decline in the domestic market.
Other carmakers such as Hyundai Motors also kept pace with the market leader as they posted a double-digit growth while sales increased 10% to 33,514 units last month. Japanese carmaker Honda maintained its winning streak with its fourth generation City sedan with a handsome 75% monthly gain at 16,316 units sold in June 2014.
The market has few notable exceptions. Tata Motors, the country's largest automaker by revenue, posted 33% decline with 7,911 passenger vehicles sold in June from 11,804 units last June. M&M and American carmaker General Motors remained negative in June. Mahindra passenger vehicle sales dipped 3% to 16,780 units in June 2014. General Motors posted a 21% decline in total sales for June at 5,172 units and has been in the red for more than a year.