Mumbai locals on a car shopping spree !

The ever growing traffic and 'next to nothing' space in one of the busiest city in the world, Mumbai has failed to dampen spirits of Mumbai localites who are on a shopping spree of cars. As per the data of the three RTOs (regional Transport Offices) in Mumbai, combined, people in Mumbai have been shedding greens to purchase cars in the festive season, putting Mumbai on the top spot in the list of cities with the highest car purchases.

As stated by an RTO official in Tardeo, South Mumbai, as much as 2651 vehicles were accounted for within the first sixteen days in the month of October as against 2857 registered in the month of September in the year 2009. The source further revealed that the number may grow to 4,000 by the end of October, 2010.

The numbers being rolled out are even more mind boggling in Andheri RTO which saw 4,720 vehicles being recorded in the first sixteen days of October. An official there estimated the number to grow by at least 3000 by the end of this month.

Contrary to the whopping increase in car purchases registered by other RTOs, the one in Wadala has not noticed the temperature rising in context of purchase of cars. 1,866 vehicles were recorded in the month of September as compared to 1794 registered in the first 16 days of October.

As stated by the president of the Western India Automobile association (WIAA), Nitin Dossa, the increase in car buying trends has crossed their expectations. He added what has been quite obvious lately that the demand has exceeded supply and that the manufacturers are finding it hard to keep up. He concluded saying that people have to wait anything between 15 days to a month before they get their cars delivered by the concerned company.

The car market graph points to a 30 to 40 per cent increase in used luxury cars being bought by customers while the overall sales have gone up by 50 per cent. City dealers reveal that sales took a steep rise during the first day of Navratri when the cash regsiters kept ringing and sales never took a halt. Calculations suggest that a close to a  hundred sales were made, of which around 20 to 15 per cent accounted for premium luxury cars. The reasons behind such a growth in car purchases is being credited to the entry of organized luxury car makers. Findings also suggest that instead of buying new cars that havs long waiting periods, people dont mind paying almost half the amount for used cars that are readily available.

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