Domestic automobile sales may be seeing south, but they are certainly looking upwards in the sales made overseas. Now, India has achieved to become a brand for car exports.  The reason for celebration in car companies is that exports are looking up. Indian auto exports driven by motorcycles, cars and commercial vehicles witnessed a 21 per cent growth in the last financial year.

In comparison, the domestic market has shrunk by 5.3 percent in the 11 months of the last fiscal year. The exports were touched 11.20 lakh units which was higher in comparison to 9.25 lakh units recorded till February 2007.

The domestic market clocked just 87.64 lakh units in the period between April 2007 to February 2008. This also includes car exports which were driven by Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki. Even though the overall car sales market grew by 6.7% percent, this was comparatively lower when you see the growth rate of 11.7 % between the periods of April 2007-February 2008. The auto exports attribute this growth to launch of new models of car and discounts offered by car manufacturers.

Hyundai which manufacture the i10 for its global market and Santro exported upto 1.26 lakh units as against the 1.06 lakh cars in the same period last fiscal year. Maruti Suzuki exports went up by 50 per cent after it recorded exports of 46,212 units as against the 30,764 units in the last financial year.

The exports are likely to go up further as Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai are planning to develop and manufacture their global cars in India. The only loser in the export driven growth was Tata Motors as its saw its exports falling at 23 percent. Tata Motors exports recorded 11,215 units as against the 14,585 units in the same period in the last fiscal year. The motorcycle sales went down by 13 per cent, bringing down the feel-good factor created by the car manufacturing industry.