Car sales cruise into fast lane in Feb as economy on road to recovery

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Car sales in India continued in the fast lane in February with market leader Maruti Suzuki, its arch rival Hyundai, home-grown Tata Motors and Japanese auto major Toyota all registering robust growth, indicating that the country’s economic revival is on track after the devastating fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
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The last few months have shown a surge in demand for cars as people are switching to personal vehicles rather than public transport because of the coronavirus risk. New models that have been rolled out due to the stiff competition in the market also helped to boost sales. Most carmakers in the country had reported a sales growth in January 2021 and the rising trend stretched into February as well.</p>
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Maruti Suzuki sold 1.5 lakh cars in Feb, which represents an 8.3 per cent increase over the sales in Feb 2020.  The company’s sales in the premium compact segment comprising models like Swift, Dzire, WagonR, Celerio, and Baleno went up by 15.3 per cent to 80,517 units. Similarly, the SUV segment which includes Vitara Brezza, S-Cross, Ertiga, and XL-6 registered an 18.9 per cent growth in sales at 26,884 units. However, its entry-level vehicles such as Alto 800 clocked a decline in sales due to stiff competition from rivals.</p>
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Hyundai, the country’s second largest car maker, recorded a 29 per cent jump in sales to 51, 600 units in Feb on the back of popular models such as Creta, Venue, i10 and i20.</p>
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Home-grown Tata Motors more than doubled its sales to 27,225 units in February 2021 as against 12,430 units during the same period in 2020.  The surge in sales has come on the back of new models such as Altroz premium hatchback, the facelifted Tiago, Tigor and Nexon launches alongside the MY2020 Harrier and the all-new Nexon EV.</p>
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Japanese carmaker, Toyota, also registered a substantial 36 per cent sales growth last month to 14,075 units during the month as it launched new models like Innova Crysta facelift and Fortuner facelift and Fortuner Legender in January.</p>
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Newcomer MG registered its best-ever monthly retail figure of 4,329 units last month, marking a growth of 215 per cent as opposed to February 2020. The British carmaker registered this growth on the account of robust demand for Hector facelift, Hector Plus and Gloster.</p>