Car sales in November'06 spurs 28.5 pc to 88,473 units

Mumbai, Dec 9 (UNI) Domestic car sales for the month of November 2006 went up by 28.5 percent to 88,473 from 68,841 a year earlier, according to a data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

Cumulative sales for the financial year that began in April were 684,105 for passenger cars, up 22.6 percent from 557,929 in the same period a year ago, SIAM maintained.

Sales of commercial vehicles -- trucks, buses and goods carriers -- rose to 40,317 in November, up 43.1 percent from sales of 28,174 units in the same month last year.

Commercial vehicle cumulative sales stood at 285,087 for the eight-month period, up 35.5 percent from 210,403 a year ago.

Commenting on sales of motorcycles, SIAM said India, which is the world's largest market for bikes after China, went up 15 per cent in November to 556,612 units.

Cumulative sales of motorcycles were 4,467,576, up 17.2 percent from 3,811,855 in the same period a year earlier.

In all, domestic automobile companies made nearly 1.14 million cars in the financial year that ended in March 2006, while industry experts hope that the market would 2 million units by 2010 as a boom in Asia's fourth-largest economy spurs consumer spending.

UNI SN SD SKB1919