For the first time in a decade, the car sales in India took a severe beating by showing a sharp fall of 7 percent in this financial year 2012-13. Just two years ago, the Indian car market was considered as one of the most lucrative markets in the world. It was second only to China. However, the gloomy economic scenario has taken its toll on India too.

Big carmakers such as Hyundai, Ford and Volkswagen had to face severe losses in the last financial year, ending March 31. While there was a surge in the sales of SUVs, sales of small cars fell drastically over the year. In March 2013, domestic car sales declined by 22.51% to 180,675 units as compared to 233,151 units in March 2012. Even the bike sales fell by 8.32% this year.

The car market had seen a similar situation in 2001 when the sales fell by 7.7 per cent. In 2011-12, the car sales grew by 2.2 per cent. Even the sales at Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki were also hit by the economic downturn.