India car sales plunge, signalling slowdown
Vincent Rambaud, Director General of Peugeot speaks to the media during the groundbreaking ceremony of the Peugeot Industrial site near Sanand, some 60 kms from Ahmedabad on November 3, 2011. Gujarat is an emerging global auto hub already hosting General Motors and Tata Nano automobile plants.
Car sales plunged in both China and India due to both countries' efforts to rein in inflation by making borrowing more expensive, but India's automobile market suffered its sharpest fall in more than a decade, signalling a "brusque slowdown," according to the Financial Times.
Car sales in India fell 23.8% in October, the biggest monthly percentage decline since December 2000, India's Economic Times newspaper said.
The paper cited rising interest rates and fuel costs, as well as the strike at Maruti-Suzuki, India's largest car manufacturer, as the main reasons for the drop. It was the fourth consecutive monthly fall in car sales.
Sales of scooters and motorcycles also dropped 2% to 1.1 million units last month, indicating that the downturn is hitting India's lower middle class consumers as well.