in june msi reported a 537 per cent dip in domestic sales at 53139 units as against 114861 units in june 2019 new delhi the countrys largest carmaker maruti suzuki india msi is seeing better demand in rural areas due to less number of covid19 cases as compared with urban regions which continue to reel under the high number of cases of the infectious disease as per a senior company official buying sentiment in rural areas is also better due to good initial spell of rains in june which has led to a better sowing of the kharif crop rural demand is little better than urban right now in maruti the rural share has gone up to 40 per cent in june which is 1 per cent increase over the last fiscal msi executive director marketing and sales shashank srivastava told advt he listed three main reasons for the phenomenon which is based on the recent data one is that covid19 has impacted the sentiment little less in rural areas in fact cluster of covid and containment zones are largely in urban areas secondly rabi crop has been good and initial monsoon in june has been good so the sowing for kharif crop is much better so rural sentiment as compared to urban sentiment is little better srivastava noted both rural and urban sales were down as compared to last year but rural sales were relatively better than urban areas he added there is decline in rural areas also as compared to last year but it is less as compared to urban regions srivastava said in june msi reported a 537 per cent dip in domestic sales at 53139 units as against 114861 units in june 2019 the companys sales were however better than may when it had posted domestic sales of 13888 units when asked if the company would be able to sustain sales momentum going ahead srivastava said it is difficult to predict a lot will depend on how the covid situation pans out so it is difficult to make prediction about the future replying to a question on if the company would be able to cover the loss in sales in first quarter over the remaining part of the current fiscal he said really dont know how the covid thing will pan out advt lot of this long term demand will depend on how the covid thing unravels how the fundamentals of economy are and how is the financing available so these things will decide there are so many uncertainties involved that it is difficult to predict srivastava added however he said with demand picking up the industry has started to ramp up production srivastava said retail sales were far better than wholesales across the industry ramping up of production is happening in phases and retail sales are a reflection of production retail figures are much better he noted if you see wholesales for the entire industry it would be roughly less than 50 per cent