India provides shelter to Toyota, Honda & Maruti Suzuki

The global meltdown has battered the sales all over the world including US and Europe, the major markets in terms of automobile sales. But, this time it is India, the largest developing market that has provided comfort and solace to the Japanese companies including Toyota, Honda and Suzuki, who had the highest sales figures from the country for the FY 2009-2010.

Maruti Suzuki, the largest car-maker in the country breached the one million mark in sales, recording a growth of 21%. The company's sales was nearly wiped out in US, falling by 52%. cloaking just 41,000 units. The overall sales of the company dropped both in Europe and Japan, witnessing a worldwide growth of just 2%.

Maruti, the subsidiary of Suzuki Corporation grew the strongest in the FY 2009-10. Maruti not only saw an upsurge in sales, it almost doubled the prifits of the Parent company to Rs 2,625 crore. Maruti is Suzuki's subsidiary in heading operations in India.

The same scale was observed for Toyota and Honda. While the sales for Maruti grew by 21%, Honda and Toyota clocked lower sales. Mr. Sandeep Singh, deputy manager of Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd. commented that the company recorded growth mainly due to the introduction of Toyota Fortuner. The sales were also contributed by Toyota's high selling Innova and Corolla.

The sales for Toyota Motors drooped by 10 per cent in the US and 15 per cent in the European markets. The overall sales of the company however rose by a roping 36%. The high sales figures could be attributed to the sales in in China and Japan, that recorded growth figures of 35 and 15 percent respectively. This contribution of mere 63,000 units cannot really be a big contributing factor in the overall high sales for the company. It is pretty evident that the sales from India resulted in the high sales figures for the company.

The same story repeated for Honda Motors, the sales for which nearly crashed in the European and Americam markets. It was India, that gave an increase of 40% for the company. Honda Motors could track sales of approximately 66,000 units from the markets of China and Japan that gave the company growth figures of 24 and 16 poercent respectively. The final conclusion was similar for Honda Motors as the significant sales of 3.3 million, was mainly because of the growth India offered to the auto major.

Indian markets respond the best in the segment for small cars and both the companies are looking forward to launch new cars in this segment in the coming years. The sales figures could thus be elevating for both Honda and Toyota Motors.

Commenting on the growth achieved from the Indian market and the potential the market offers, Jnaneshwar Sen, vice president (marketing), Honda Siel Cars India said the company expects the sales to grow even further as India is the fastest growing automobile market in the world. Although the exact details have not been revealed, Mr. Sen hinted that small cars from the company could hit Indian markets by 2011, another area of hope.

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