Speeding up

New Delhi, Feb. 18: The three-wheeler segment has posted a sales growth of about 10 per cent in the April-January period compared with the corresponding period last year.

The growth has been triggered by a significant volume increase in the sales of goods carrier, even as the passenger carrier segment has shown a marginal decline. The growth has been led by an almost doubling of volume in the passenger segment by Piaggio, which has also shown significant rise in the goods carrier segment.

However, this year?s 10 per cent growth compares poorly with a nearly 19 per cent growth in domestic sales during April-January 2003-04 over that of the corresponding period in 2002-03.

The prime players in the domestic three-wheeler segment are Piaggio, Bajaj Auto, Scooters India and Atul Auto Limited. Total cumulative sales for the period of April-January 2005 is 249,393 units against a cumulative figure of 228,215 units for the year-ago period. For April-January 2003, 192,287 three-wheeler units were sold.

In the last 10 months, Piaggio Vehicles posted a domestic sales of 23,825 units compared with 12,795 units in the corresponding period last year. This is for three-wheelers where the number of seats does not exceed four, including the driver, or what we usually call the auto rickshaw.

Piaggio has recently made its debut in the segment between four and seven seats. In the goods carrier section, Piaggio has achieved a sales of 38,054 units for the last 10 months against that of 27,994 in the year-ago period.

For Bajaj Auto, there has been a drop of about 10,000 units in the passenger segment at 103,493 units in the last 10 months compared with the previous 10 years. However, in the goods carrier segment, it has sold 26,501 units against 18,249 units in the year-ago period.