From Business Week:
India's auto sales surged 71.9 percent in November from a year earlier to 207,500 vehicles, thanks to poor sales this time last year and robust consumer spending.
Sales of passenger cars rose 60.8 percent to 133,687 units while commercial vehicle sales nearly doubled to 40,847 vehicles, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group, said Tuesday. Sales of other passenger vehicles, like utility vehicles, rose 94.5 percent, to 32,966 units.
The surge is also a sign of how the Indian consumer -- encouraged by government tax cuts, a big disbursement of back pay for government employees and falling interest rates -- is fueling economic growth in Asia's third-largest economy.
In the September quarter, India's gross domestic product grew a better-than-expected 7.9 percent, its fastest in a year and a half.
Last November, India's auto sector was struggling with the fallout of the global financial crisis, which helped drive economic growth to its lowest in six years. Auto sales began to recover in February, thanks to government stimulus spending and early signs of an economic turnaround.
