After recording a fall in sales for two consecutive months, the car segment surprised experts with a marginal gain of 2.83 per cent by selling 108,823 units in a relatively slack month of September, which is when buyers generally postpone their purchase to the festive period.

The price-sensitive car segment had recorded a fall of 1.70 per cent and 4.35 per cent during July and August this year.

Market leader Maruti [Get Quote] Suzuki witnessed a fall of 1.3 per cent in sales in the A2 segment, which is also the volume generating segment comprising compact cars such as Alto, Wagon R, Zen Estilo and Swift. This was the company's fourth straight fall in sales of small cars, including that of M800.

Analysts believe that fierce competition from players such as Hyundai,  General Motors and Tata Motors [Get Quote] had made a dent into the company's market share. Hyundai during the same month recorded a rise of 24 per cent on the back of strong performance from its i10 model.

Piyush Parag, auto analyst, Religare Securities, said, "The small car segment is boosted by consumers who are interest rate sensitive. Off late, we have seen a hike in lending rates and this had impacted sale of small cars."

Dilip Chenoy, Director General, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, said, "The numbers have been good surprisingly for the 'shraadh' period. We expected a double-digit growth in the first six months, but unfortunately it has been in single digits. With liquidity position easing out, we hope that the consumer sentiment will improve. October so far has registered good growth atleast in the first week."

Sales of utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles such as Mahindra Scorpio, Tata Safari, Maruti Omni among several others also recorded a growth of almost 15 per cent by selling 31,643 units during the period.

Two-wheelers sales led by motorcycles grew by 14.51 per cent during the month as the industry saw sales of 7,78,424 units as against 6,79,766 reported in the comparable previous month.

A Mumbai-based analyst said, "The slack of the earlier period has been well compensated by the surge in sales in the first half of this financial year. Consumers who have been holding back their purchase for lack of finance availability will look to make the purchase this festive period as two-wheeler companies have already made alternative finance arrangements."