Mahindra has become India’s third largest automobile manufacturer, behind Tata Motors. People are buying its SUVs in droves.
Mahindra, India’s largest SUV maker, has now officially become India’s third largest automaker. In September, the auto giant overtook Tata Motors to take third place with nearly 24 percent growth in sales. Mahindra currently offers only SUVs in its passenger vehicle range. Scorpio-N, XUV700, XUV3XO and Thar are some of the most popular models of the brand. Mahindra will add the new Thar Rocks to its portfolio on October 3, which is expected to boost the automaker’s sales in October.
Mahindra is now behind India’s largest automaker Maruti Suzuki in the list of leading automakers in India. Besides overtaking Tata Motors, Mahindra also narrowed the gap with India’s second-largest automaker, Hyundai Motor, last month. Mahindra sold 51,062 SUVs in India in September. This is slightly lower than the 51,101 units sold by the Korean auto giant, whose sales fell by around 5% year-on-year.
Mahindra is among the few automakers to report sales growth in September. Top three automakers Maruti, Hyundai and Tata have reduced shipments to dealerships amid slowdown and backlog of inventory. Besides Mahindra, automakers like Toyota also recorded growth in the same month.
Mahindra will officially open bookings for the Thar Rocks SUV on October 3. The 5-door variant of the Thar off-roader is equipped with many advanced features. The automaker introduced a new interior theme for the SUV, two days before bookings began. Mahindra expects the Thar Rocks to add around 4,000 more units to its average monthly sales. This could help the automaker narrow the sales gap with Hyundai further, or even surpass it, in the coming days.
Tight competition between the 5 largest Indian automakers
Since September, Maruti continues to dominate the passenger four-wheeler segment with sales of around 1.45 lakh cars, followed by Hyundai and Mahindra at second and third positions. After the recent decline in sales, Tata Motors has fallen to fourth place in the list. The automaker, leader in India’s electric passenger vehicle segment, was able to sell only 41,063 units as it reported a drop in sales of almost eight percent.
The race for the fifth position in the list of top Indian automakers has also intensified, as Kia moves closer to Toyota Motor. In September, Kia’s sales increased by 17 percent, with 23,523 units sold, just 279 units less than those of Toyota, which also saw its sales increase by more than seven percent.