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Oct passenger car sales jump 33.8% year-on-year

India's domestic passenger car sales soared 34 per cent in October, notching up a third straight month of strong growth, as automakers wooed buyers with price cuts in the hotly competitive market.

Spending on new cars ahead of Diwali also helped power last month's strong performance, analysts said.

Domestic passenger car sales jumped to 45,317 units in October from 33,871 units in the same month last year, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said on Monday.

The robust growth in the car sales market has been driven by a wide range of discounts on many compact cars, the biggest-selling segment.

But the big rise in "October sales are mainly attributed to festivals," Kalpesh Parekh, analyst at Sushil Finance Ltd, said.

"Also discounts, freebies and easy financing have helped sales," he said. "The rate of interest on personal loans has also fallen appreciably over last year, boosting sales."

The introduction of new models and fierce competition has spurred carmakers, dealers and finance firms to offer discounts and easier lending terms to buyers.

Car sales in April-October -- the first seven months of the financial year to March -- rose to 303,784 units from 282,183 units in the same year-ago period.

Sales of commercial vehicles, or trucks and buses combined, totalled 16,755 units in October, up from 12,057 in the same month a year earlier. Sales in April-October totalled 99,873 units against 75,653 in the same period in 2001.

Industry officials say the jump in truck sales this year has been helped by a shift in demand to bigger multi-axle vehicles that can compete with the railways in cost-per-tonne of payload carried.

Motorcycle sales in the world's largest market after China rose 28.5 per cent to 367,884 units in October from 286,367 units in the year-ago period, SIAM added.

Motorcycle sales have been rising, helped by falling prices, larger incomes, cheaper financing and a shift in consumer preferences to fuel-efficient bikes from scooters.

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