India Second Fastest Growing Car Market

 A surging economy and new models saw passenger vehicle sales in India boom in 2010, making the country the world’s second fastest growing market, ahead of developed ones like Japan, Brazil, US and UK, lagging only to China. If this was not enough, the country grew at the fastest pace in sales of commercial vehicles, even ahead of China, mainly backed by growth of infrastructure.

        Sales of passenger vehicles grew 31% in India in January-November 2010, ahead of the 10% growth in Japan, 9% in Brazil, 5%in the US and 3% in UK. Sales in China that has emerged as the world’s biggest car market grew 39%, according to figures provided by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. Some of the other big markets could not even manage to stay afloat as France shrank 1% and Italy 7%.

But, India beat the dragon in commercial vehicles as sales in this segment shot up by 47% in January-November 2010, ahead of Brazil’s 41%, China’s 25%, US’ 18% and UK and Germany’s 15%. “After slow years in 2008 and 2009, last year saw demand for commercial vehicles shoot up due to the healthy economic growth and infrastructure development as well as the government. All indicators remained healthy, leading to sustained buying,” said Abdul Majeed, a partner at Pricewaterhouse.

        “While the Indian market may be small in absolute numbers compared to some of the above markets, factors like high growth rates as well as low vehicle penetration mean that India may soon catch up with them in the coming years,” analysts said.

India’s rising status in the global auto world can be gauged by the fact that the country now accounts for 5% of the global auto production, much higher than 1.4% at the beginning of the last decade, Siam said. Also, India has broken into the top 10 highest auto producing countries, standing at the seventh position in 2010 against 15^th in 2000.

Source: Times of India (Daily Indian Newspaper)

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