October provides rich harvest for Maruti DZire and Honda Activa

Diwali is the best time to buy new cars and going by the surging demand witnessed last month, many of the models witnessed best ever sales.

Maruti Suzuki DZire clocked a record of sorts with 21,861 units sold last month, showing signs of buoyant demand and increasing propensity of Indian customers to spend more. Another model that gained favourable customer attention was Hyundai i10 Grand hatchback, which posted its best ever monthly sales during the past three years of its existence, when cumulative sales jumped 21 per cent over last year.

The Indian passenger car industry, which has been looking for green shoots of growth to culminate into new energy, could bounce from the fact that top five of the top ten selling cars were in the price bracket range of Rs 7-15 lakh. Expensive mass market models like Hyundai i20, Honda City and Amaze, and Maruti Swift were other notable brands in the top-ten list for October.

Indian customers had been upgrading to bigger models as expansion in the product range and emergence of new segments like the compact sub-four metre sedans have allowed purchase of bigger cars at competitive prices. It is the primarily reason for Maruti DZire outselling many smaller cars in the market and remains among the top three selling cars for the past two years.

The two-wheeler market also threw some interesting aspects. Scooter maintained the pole position and outsold bikes. Honda Activa pushed the erstwhile market leader, Hero Splendor bike with a slender margin of 999 units in October. The comeback of scooter is a big achievement in the world's largest market for petrol bikes. Scooters are back in the reckoning and have already doubled their market share in the past decade to 30 per cent of the total 16 million two wheelers sold in India.