New Delhi: Green shoots appeared to be emerging in the auto sector on Wednesday with Maruti Suzuki India reporting 3.9 per cent increase in total sales during December.

Driven by festive season and heavy discounts, the country’s largest car manufacturer sold 1.33 lakh units as compared to 1.28 lakh units year-on-year.

Domestic sales grew by 3.5 per cent at 1.25 lakh units against 1.21 lakh units in December 2018 while exports grew by 10.2 per cent at 7,561 units in December 2019 as against 6,859 units in the same month of previous year.

Passenger car sales went up by 9.1 per cent at 91,341 units against 83,729 units while passenger vehicle sales grew by 2.5 per cent at 1.22 lakh units against 1.19 lakh units year-on-year.

While the mini-car segment showed a decline of 13.6 per cent at 23,883 units from 27,649, the compact-car segment (New WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire) reported 27.9 per cent jump in sales at 65,673 units from 51,346 units. Taken together, the mini and compact segment clocked a gain of 13.4 per cent.

However, the mid-size Ciaz reported 62.3 per cent drop in December 2019 sales at 1,786 units from 4,734 units in the year-ago period. The sale of vans (Omni, Eeco) too crashed by 51.8 per cent to 7,634 units from 15,850 units.

Amid slowdown in economic growth and weak demand environment, the automobile industry saw a significant decline in sales during 2019 due to increase in the cost of acquisition of a car, more stringent safety and emission (BS 6) norms, increase in vehicle insurance expenses and hike in road taxes in many states.

(ANI)