The country's leading car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India, today reported achieving a growth of 14.4 per cent in April with total sales accounting for 172,986 units. The same month last year, the company sold 151,215 vehicles in total, including domestic sales and exports. The company sales performance in the domestic market has been particularly impressive for the start of the new fiscal year. Maruti Suzuki sold a total of 163,434 passenger vehicle in the domestic market last month, against the 144,081 units sold in April 2017, registering a growth of 13.4 per cent. On the other hand, commercial vehicle sales shot up by over 275 per cent, at 1,544 units, compared to last year's 411 vehicles. Exports at the same time went up by 19.1 per cent, with 8,008 vehicles in April 2018, against the 6,723 vehicles exported during the same month last year.
The company's domestic sales were led by a massive surge in the compact car space thanks to the new-generation Maruti Suzuki Swift, which was launched early this year. In April 2018, Maruti's compact car segment alone registered a growth of 31.8 per cent with 83,834 units, against the 63,584 vehicles sold during the same month last year. The segment includes - the Swift, Baleno, Ignis, Celerio, Dzire and TourS. While we do not have the individual sales numbers for the Swift right now, the car has been doing an average of almost 17,000 units a month and judging by the growth of the segment, the numbers seem to be similar for April as well.
The carmaker's C-segment sedan, Maruti Suzuki Ciaz's sales, however, was possibly was in its lowest month ever with a drop of 27.2 per cent in April 2018. The carmaker sold 5,116 units of the Ciaz in India last month compared to the 7,024 units sold in April 2017. In fact, the Ciaz's YoY sale has been consistently dropping since September 2017, which could be the effect of the new-gen Verna, which incidentally was launched in India in August 2017. The long impending launch of the Ciaz facelift could also be a reason considering the fact that it's been four years since the launch of the car and it still hasn't received an update in India. As of now, the Ciaz facelift is expected to be launched later this year and we have already spotted several test mules in the country.
