et wealth in collaboration with cardekhocom evaluates and compares the top 5 cars in the price category between rs 6 lakh and rs 12 lakh india last year bucked the decades first declining trend in global auto output logging the fastest pace of expansion among top ten production hubs although sales locally turned a bit soft because of changes to insurance rules and increases in fuel prices through the festive seasonproduction growth of 8 for the indian automotive industry has come at a time when global automobile production itself declined for the first time in a decade by 11 to about 956 million units advt as per data available with international organisation of automobile manufacturers oica automobile production passenger and commercial vehicles in india increased 8 to 517 million units last year brazil came next expanding by 52 to 287 million units albeit on a smaller base output in china dropped by 42 to 2780 million units while production in the us and japan climbed 11 to 1131 million units and 04 to 972 million units respectivelyproduction of passenger vehicles in india rose 28 to about 41 million units output of commercial vehicles jumped 34 to 11 million unitsthis growth in production has largely come on the back of strong sales particularly of commercial vehicles in the first 89 months of the yearseveral economies the world over are in recession india is the only major country with solid growth behind it if not for the global slowdown which has hit exports the growth rate of production in the country would have been even higher said v g ramakrishnan managing partner at avanteum partners llptop gainers and losers in passenger vehicle segment in fy19pv exports decline first time for two consecutive years in a decade to be sure a significant increase in insurance expenses fuel costs and liquidity tightening after the ilfs crisis affected demand locally in the second half of the year industry insiders are confident however that growth will revive in fy20 with customers advancing purchases ahead of the anticipated price increases on account of implementation of bs vi emission standards from april 1 2020 advt in a recent interaction maruti suzuki chairman r c bhargava told et a lot of regulations related to safety and emission norms will come in over the next few months there is a possibility that customers may choose to buy vehicles before prices go upi personally feel this year will be much better than the last one bhargava declined to share any growth estimates but said he expects the industry to recover soondomestic sales thereafter are likely to decline in the next financial year but longterm prospects remain strongn raja deputy managing director sales marketing toyota kirloskar motor tkm said unlike in developed economies where new car sales are largely driven by replacement demand a major portion of purchases in india happen on account of firsttime buyers they contribute 3540 to new car sales unlike in japan where this customer set chips