Looks Like A Record October In India
November 1st, 2010 7:47 AM
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Meanwhile in India, things look much better. No total sales are in yet, but market leader Maruti Suzuki posted a 39 percent gain in sales to 118,908 vehicles in October from 85,415 a year earlier, reports The Nikkei [sub]. This was the strongest October in Maruti Suzuki’s recorded history.
Sales of Maruti small cars, including the Alto, Alto-K10, A-star, WagonR, Ritz, Estilo and Swift, rose 51 percent. Sales of sedans such as the SX4 and Dzire jumped 32 percent to 11,621 units.
Indians buy cars faster than they can be produced: Capacity constraints have led to waiting periods of 15 days to a few months. Maybe they should import some from Japan. Both countries drive on the left.
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India is an amazing place and much more diverse population wise than most of China. Like China it has an enormous potential, because of the size of its population. Unlike, China you cannot expand infrastructure using the land that someone is living on by a whim from party officials. This is not to say that China does not have diverse regions, but the political control exercised within each province appears to be much more tidy than is the case within India.
I'm pretty sure India has a 100% import tax rate for cars. And probably everybody likes it that way. In dollar terms (which means some distortions due to currency) Indian cars are way overprices for what they are. Imports could lower that -- but the government is afraid of road cost and gasoline imports. Given that price constraints, there may be a case in India for hybrid and electric cars.