News: Indian car sales up 28.5% yr/yr in Nov

(RTR 08/12/2006) New Delhi -: Domestic car sales in November rose 28.5 per cent to 88,473 from 68,841 a year earlier, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said on Friday.

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, the industry body said.

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.

Sales of motorcycles in India, the world's largest market for bikes after China, rose an annual 15.0 percent in November to 556,612 units.

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

Indian automobile companies made nearly 1.14 million cars in the financial year that ended in March 2006, and analysts forecast the market to reach 2 million units by 2010 as a boom in Asia's fourth-largest economy spurs consumer spending.