Moneycontrol Bureau
Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest car manufacturer, beat analysts' expectations on November sales front due to strong performance in domestic business despite currency demonetisation.
The company said on Thursday that it sold 1.35 lakh units in November, a growth of 12.2 percent compared with 1.2 lakh units sold in year-ago period. Sequential growth was 1.5 percent.
Domestic sales increased 14.2 percent year-on-year to 1.26 lakh units in the month gone by while exports fell 9.8 percent to 9,225 units, the lowest sales since June 2016.
Nomura had estimated flat sales at 1.21 lakh units and Motilal Oswal expected it to fall 5 percent at 1.15 lakh units due to currency demonetisation announced by the government on November 8.
Analysts say high waiting period on products like Brezza and Baleno kept sales buoyant in November.
Passenger car sales increased 8.1 percent, driven by compact and mini car segment. Utility vehicles sales showed a whopping 98.1 percent growth at 17,215 units YoY due to strong demand for Vitara Brezza and Ertiga.
Compact car sales grew by 10.8 percent year-on-year to 49,431 units led by good demand for Baleno and mini car segment (Alto and WagonR) registered a 8.1 percent growth.
However, Super Compact (Dzire Tour), Mid-size (Ciaz) and Vans (Omni, Eeco) segments reported degrowth of 10.3 percent, 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.
Under light commercial vehicles segment, which launched few months back, Maruti sold 105 units of Super Carry against 80 units sold in previous month.
At 10:17 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 5,276.60, up Rs 13.15, or 0.25 percent on the BSE.
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