Top 10 selling cars of 2015: Maruti, Hyundai continue dominance

After dismal results in 2013 and 2014, the year 2015 gave the much needed push to the Indian automobile industry as it’s expected to close this year at around 6 per cent year-on-year growth. From the year 2011 to 2014, the overall industry saw a decline of 1 per cent. Of all the segments, passenger vehicle sales inspected a reasonable growth thanks to several new car launches over the year.

While bad rains in some parts of the country affected the two-wheeler growth, low crude oil prices and investment announcements in infrastructure sector helped the passenger vehicle segment register record sales. As against the calendar year 2014’s 2.54 million passenger vehicles sold in the domestic market, the on-going calendar year is expected to achieve 6 per cent growth with an estimated 2.69 million units this year.

While the year wasn’t good for domestic players like Tata and Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda managed to attract buyers over the year banking on their new products.

Commenting on this Suraj Ghosh, principal analyst, IHS Automotive said: “The year wasn’t good for the domestic players Tata and Mahindra, though both had new launches this year. Tata’s Bolt didn’t do well, whereas Zest had good initial few months but then couldn’t sustain the enthusiasm. Mahindra TUV300 also had good initial response but it’s success can be assessed only a few months later,”

“Maruti has continued its dominance in the Top 10 selling cars this year as well, with it’s older models like Alto, Swift and Dzire successfully holding on to their popularity. It further confirms the effectiveness of Maruti’s two strategic pillars on which it had built its brand – affordability and fuel efficiency. And with i20 and grand i10 doing well, Hyundai also has shown consistent performance in 2015. Verna was bit of a disappointment this year with new Honda City regaining its old ground somewhat but Creta’s numbers kept Hyundai in a good position overall.”, he added.

Maruti Suzuki India Limited