Top Selling Indian Cars (May 2011)
I saw this story in Rediff which had some interesting data, horribly mangled. I found a more clear if more unreliable data set on a forum and redid it into these charts. I think it’s all from this SIAM report, which costs money. That’s enough methodology. Basically everyone is buying Suzuki Marutis. The Alto to be precise. The Indian domestic car industry is booming.
What I find interesting, looking at sales by brand, is that the foreign companies are dwarfed by locals, with the exception of Hyundai. Seriously, kudos to Hyundai. In my youth they had a reputation as low-end cars. Now they have a quality reputation while selling to a low-end market. Well done.
If you look at sales by car, Maruti is macking it hard with the Alto. If the Alto was a brand, it would be bigger than everyone but Hyundai.
It is, of course, important to show that most people in India still aren’t buying cars at all. They’re buying motorbikes. The sheer size of India still makes it the second fastest growing car market (behind China). The market is projected to be the largest in the world by 2050. By which time I really hope we have flying cars.
Thankfully, Indian cars look less poised to destroy the future than America’s boom, seeing as compact, fuel-efficient cars like the Maruti Alto dominate sales. So far.
All of my work is available in a hugely messy and incomprehensibly Google Spreadsheet, if you dare.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
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India is the second fastest growing car market after India? That probably should read China. Also, Maruti is majority owned by Suzuki and I’m pretty sure most design and R&D is done in Japan. So I’m not sure it really qualifies as a domestic marque.
[...] This was pegged as a one lakh car (about $2000) but the price is over $3000. Still quite cheap. In India (and here) the vast majority of personal transport is on two wheels (motorbike) or three (trishaw). The Tata Nano aimed to push into that market and it’s gained a respectable share (see Top Selling Indian Cars, May 2011). [...]