chennai vans are vrooming on indian roads the van segment which routinely clocked very modest single digit growth all through last year is suddenly in top gear according to the latest siam data the van segment clocked the highest growth in aprilmay 2018 higher than cars and even the turbocharged suvs although much smaller than both cars and suvs in terms of sheer numbers vans have clocked a whopping 24 growth in the aprilmay 2018 period compared to 12 growth in car sales and 15 in suv sales in april alone the van segment grew 19 see table this sudden growth spurt is a sharp departure from all of 2017 when the segment growth hovered between 46 in fact vans were totally flat in april 2017 and negative in march 2017typically the van segment is the smallest component of the passenger vehicle market comprising less than 7 of the total 3 million unit plus annual sales the april and may 2018 sales have averaged around 19000 units per month auto industry experts say van sales had hit an alltime high in 2012 and crashed thereafter the aprilmay trend shows sales are once again beginning to climb to 2012 levels in 2012 vans sold anywhere between 1900023000 units a month and the highest ever sales of mpvs was in september 2012 when the segment hit 23026 units after that the sales dropped and it is only now that it has consistently clocked 19000 units for two consecutive months said vishnu mathur directorgeneral siam van sales being in smaller numbers go up and down and had fallen to a low of just 11978 units as recently as june 2017 he addedothers say vans are turning out to be cheaper for those looking to buy suvs but cant afford them minivans are available from as low as less than rs 3 lakh and are also popular for commercial usage all through 2017 mini van sales swung from a low of 14765 units in march 2017 to hit 19350 units in july 2017 and here too the growth graph went up and down negative in march flat in april but hovering between 46 growth through the rest of the year for the year april 17march 18 the total segment clocked nearly 6 growth at 192235 units up from 181737 units the year before but the year before april 16march 17 van sales were almost flat clocking just over 2 growth at 181737 units compared to 177535 units the year before