NEW DELHI: Leading Indian automakers Maruti Suzuki reported higher sales for April on Tuesday but a rise in vehicle prices, fuel costs and loan rates sharply slowed the pace of growth from the previous month.
Maruti, India's largest car maker by sales, announced a 4.4 percent rise in total vehicle sales to 97,155 units in April from a year earlier.
Sales of the company's cars in March surged 28 percent to 121,952 vehicles while those across the past year rose 25 percent to 1.27 million units.
New Delhi-based Maruti's domestic market share has shrunk five percent to 45 percent amid fierce competition from rivals.
Automobile sales in India grew at a record 27 percent in the financial year ended March 31 to 15.5 million units.
But the industry expects the pace to slacken this year to between 12 and 15 percent as higher financing, fuel and and car prices, due to soaring steel and other input costs, discourage buyers.
Last week, Maruti said that while the longer-term outlook for India's car industry was strong, the short-term outlook was uncertain because of rising costs.
With just one in 10 households in urban areas owning a car and one in 50 in rural areas, India remains a highly under-penetrated market, drawing a flood of global entrants from General Motors to Ford and Renault.
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