India has a huge market? Don't Fool the World

Indians are always bragging that India is a comsumer market and has huge middle class ( some even put the number of middle class in India as ridiculous 300 million).

Sales of some brands in India in 2009

For the 12-month period ended December, 2009, BMW sold 3,619 luxury cars in India, as compared to the 3,247 luxury units that Mercedes Benz sold.

Mercedes ended 2009 with 38% of the pie against BMW's 40% with the third German luxury carmaker Audi claiming the rest. From the calculation, Audi only sold about 2000 cars in India. Source

In 2009, Volvo only sold a pitiful 140 cars in India. (Source).

Sales of same brands in China in 2009

For those who don't know how small India's market size is, I give you some more data on the sales of the same brands in the same year (2009) in China. You can find the clue by doing simple comparison. Basically, tiny Indian market can be ignored.

Mercedes-Benz sold a record 68,500 cars in China last year, it said in a statement late on Monday, beating its previous target of 65,000 units.

Sales of Volkswagen AG's Audi premier brand rose 32.9 percent to 158,941 units. Source

BMW's deliveries in 2009 climbed 38 percent in China to 90,500 vehicles and 24 percent in India to 3,600. Source

According to the Volvo's news release, the company sold 22,405 cars in China in 2009. (Source)

The size of whole auto market in 2009

As auto market in whole, China became the largest auto market in the world. In 2009 passenger car sales soared to 10.3 million in China and total vehicle sales are estimated at 13.6 million, the China Passenger Car Association said. That represents growth of about 45 percent from 2008.

By contrast, U.S. sales of cars and light trucks plunged 21 percent in 2009 to 10.4 million as a shaky economy kept buyers away from showrooms. It was the first time any country bought more cars than Americans. (Source)

Only 1.4 million cars were sold in Inddia in 2009 according to a Bloomberg News calculation of data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers on Jan. 8 2009. (Source). That number is really pityful and embarrassing for a country of 1.1 billion population.