Passenger carmakers reported double-digit growth in July, riding on the back of pent-up demand.

Market leader Maruti Suzuki witnessed a 50 per cent increase in sales at 1,62,462 units in July, while sales at Tata Motors were up 92 per cent to 51,981 units even as automakers continued to face shortage of semiconductors and components.

Maruti had sold 1,08,064 units in July last year. Its domestic sales increased 39 per cent to 1,41,238 units last month against 1,01,307 units in July 2020, the company said.

Sales of compact segment, including models such as Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire, rose to 70,268 units from 51,529 cars in July last year.

Tata Motors said its total domestic sales rose 92 per cent over 27,024 units sold in July 2020. Its passenger vehicle sales in the domestic market stood at 30,185 units in July against 15,012 units in the same month last year.

The second-largest car maker, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), reported a 46 per cent increase in total sales at 60,249 units in July against 41,300 units sold in the same month last year.

“A positive growth momentum is clearly visible in the passenger vehicle industry with the stabilisation of macro-economic factors, good monsoons and increase in consumer shift towards personal mobility,” said Tarun Garg, director (sales, marketing & service), Hyundai Motor India.

Honda Cars India Ltd dispatched 6,055 (5,383) units in the domestic market and exported 918 (282) units in July this year.

Rajesh Goel, senior vice-president and director, marketing & sales, Honda Cars India, said, “The market sentiment has improved amid prevailing lower Covid infection rate and we expect the upcoming festive period will help the industry to maintain this momentum. However, we will keep a closer watch on the challenges related to the pandemic and rising cost of acquisition of cars due to the price hike from this month.”