Wheels roar on Dhanteras luck

Rabin Ghosh & Sindhu Bhattacharya

MUMBAI/ NEW DELHI: When Krishnan Prasad, employee of a diamond trading firm, received a car as bonus from his employers earlier this month, he chose to take delivery of the four-wheeled beauty on Thursday.

The wait spanned almost a fortnight from the day Prasad completed the formalities with the dealer. Prasad wasn’t alone.

On Dhanteras, considered an auspicious day, an estimated 2,500 cars were delivered in Mumbai alone. The overall car market in the city is about 9,000 units a month.

Delhi consumers were just as driven by the impulse to capitalise on a propitious beginning. In the National Capital Region (NCR), Maruti sold about 1,250 cars on Dhanteras. On an average day, Maruti sells 200 cars there.

Indeed, Maruti sold over 8,000 vehicles across the country on Dhanteras, which is more than four times its average daily sale.

Hyundai claimed sales of around 1,000 cars in Delhi and the NCR on Thursday. Honda Motors delivered 527 cars the same day - which is more than twice its usual sale. Honda even registered 259 new bookings.

“A lot of people prefer to take delivery of vehicles on days like Dhanteras, Dassera, Gudi Padwa, and Diwali,” said Jayant Badaskar of Millennium Toyota, a Mumbai dealership.  “We delivered about 47 vehicles on Dhanteras and over 100 on Dassera. Otherwise, on average, we sell five-ten vehicles a day.”

A Honda Siel official said the company delivered over 240 vehicles on Dhanteras in Mumbai. “We expect a similar sales volume during the Diwali week,” he said.