New car launches likely to pep up festive sales

Mahindra and Mahindra on Wednesday launched its premium SUV Rexton from the Ssangyong stable. Maruti Suzuki India launched an all new Alto 800 on Tuesday.

While the former starts at Rs 17.67 lakh, the latter has been priced even below the existing 800 cc Alto model, starting at Rs 2.44 lakh. Such is the range of new launches during this year's festive season.

After a dull first half, carmakers have geared up to make the most of festive season sentiments to boost sales. The industry is pinning hopes on the Dussehra-Diwali period and is banking on the new launches to bring in the fresh cheer into the market.

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This week, marking the beginning of Navratri period in western India, has already seen launches of the Maruti Suzuki Alto 800, Mahindra Rexton, Tata Indigo Manza Club Class, Tata Safari Storme, new Ford Figo, and the automatic version of the Honda Brio is slated for a launch on October 18.

Vishnu Mathur, director general, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said, "New launches are definitely going to improve sales and create a buzz in the market, and we are hopeful that it would bring about some difference in the sentiments."

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The industry body has revised its growth forecast for the fiscal downwards, saying that passenger cars would now grow by only 1-3 per cent.

Passenger car sales during April-September 2012 stood at 9,09,972 units, down from 9,12,455 units during the same period last year.

Mahindra & Mahindra's (M&M) chief executive officer, automotive division, Pravin Shah, says, "We will make 2500 Quantos this month. As for the Rexton, numbers would depend on market demand. Talking about the market, the momentum definitely is picking up. We feel that the markets have bottomed out."

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Industry insiders feel that on the back of popular models like the Quanto, XUV 500, new launch Rexton M&M is likely to clock a 30 per cent growth this festive season.

Maruti Suzuki has already seen a 17 per cent year-on-year growth during Onam this year, and is hopeful of a good Dussehra-Diwali period.

The company's latest launch the Alto 800 already had 10,000 bookings even before it was launched on October 16.

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Tarun Garg, vice president, sales Maruti Suzuki, said that the company is expecting sentiments to improve during the festive season. The company expects around 10 per cent growth in the second half of the year.

On a cautious note, however, SIAM's Mathur pointed out that last year's festive sales were not very good either.

"While this year's sales are likely to be better compared to last year, we are not expecting very booming sales. Only that new launches would bring in some buzz in the market", he added.