Maruti Suzuki April sales soar 30%

The country's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki, Saturday said sales in April rose around 30 percent to 93,058 units, compared to the corresponding month last year.

The company sold 71,748 vehicles in April 2009. Exports were about 13,024 units, a rise of 89%, it said in a statement.

The rise in sales took place despite a hike in prices of all cars of the company by up to Rs10,000 on April 2 following an increase in input costs and introduction of new emission norms.

Sales in the compact car (A2) segment comprising Alto, Wagon-R, Zen, Swift, Ritz and A-Star grew 20.5% at 56,416 units over April 2009.

Sales of models in its mid-sized (A3) segment comprising SX4 and D'Zire rose 41.4 percent to 9,994 cars.

The multi-utility segment, however, saw a slump with sales dipping 21.3% to 712 units.

Sale of its once-flagship model, Maruti 800, too saw a decline of 3.7% at 2,258 units. The model is being phased out and sales were supposed to be discontinued in 13 cities from April.