Four-wheeler sales cools off in '05

NEW DELHI: Four-wheeler sales, which have been booming for a while now, cooled off in 2005 due to decline in demand and also floods in Maharashtra.

However, motorcycles sales kept up the momentum on the two-wheeler front.

According to year-end figures released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), car sales growth in India fell drastically to just 6.9 per cent in 2005 against the high 24.6 per cent in the year ending December 2004.

Many of the carmakers in India, including Tata Motors, saw demand slowing down in the year, which also saw others factors like floods in Maharashtra and Gujarat and stricter emission norms (which saw prices moving up) hit demand.

Total car sales in 2005 stood at 8.58 lakh units against 8.02 units in 2004. Utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles also could not insulate themselves from the slowdown, with sales growth dropping to 8.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively from as high as 25.3 per cent and 11.6 per cent in 2004.

In the commercial vehicles front, the story was no different as a massive slowdown in the demand of medium-and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCV) saw overall growth wilting to 9.04 per cent in 2005 from 28.3 per cent in 2004.

In fact, M&HCV segment was the worst affected as sales growth dropped to a low of 3.7 per cent from as high as 28.6 per cent. A total of 1.97 lakh units were sold in 2005 against 1.9 lakh units in 2004. Goods carriers were the main contributor to the fall as sales growth in this segment fell to 3 per cent from 33.3 per cent in 2004.