The sale of passenger vehicles breached the four million units mark for the first time in calendar year 2023, driven by the strong growth in the sale of sports utility vehicles which accounted for one in every two vehicles sold.
The wholesale number of passenger vehicles sold stood at 41.08 lakh (or 4.1 million) units in calendar year 2023, which was a growth of 8.3% as compared to the CY 2022 when this figure stood at 37.92 lakh, Maruti Suzuki India Senior Executive Officer (Marketing and Sales) Shashank Srivastava told reporters in a call.
Maruti Suzuki sold a total 17.08 lakh vehicles in CY 2023, up from 15.76 lakh in CY 2022, registering a growth of 8.5%. This helped it improve its market share from 41.6% to 42% during the same reference period.
Maruti also recorded a sale of over 2 million units for the first time ever during the last calendar year, which included the export of 2.69 lakh units.
The biggest trend in car sales was the growth in sale of SUVs, whose share in total sales climbed from 42% to 48.7% last calendar year. Hatchbacks saw their share decline from 34.8% to 30%, sedans too declined from 11% to 9.4% and multi-utility vehicles remained stagnant at 8.7% share.
Rural penetration saw a stronger growth at 10.4%, as compared to urban which was at 7.3% during the calendar year.
The other major trend was the growth in emission-friendly product categories, according to Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd. and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd. The share of gasoline vehicles declined from 68% to 65%, and diesel too dropped from 19.2% to 17.6%. Share of CNG vehicles rose from 11% to 13.5%, hybrids from 0.5% to 2%, and electric vehicles from 1.3% to 2.2%.
Tata Motors saw its third consecutive year of highest-ever sales in CY 2023 at 5,53,000 units which too was led by its compact SUV segment and strong growth in hatches, despite hatchbacks showing degrowth at the industry level.
