this story originally appeared in on sep 14 2012 mumbai as maruti suzukis production took a hit because of recent labour woes at its manesar factory in haryana the indian operations of two japanese carmakers toyota and honda have emerged as the biggest gainers in the first five months of fiscal 2013 even as passenger vehicle sales slowed down into single digits toyota kirloskar has gained more than a percentage point in market share by moving from 697 to 557 a year ago honda cars india has moved up to 285 from 19 in the aprilaugust period of fiscal 2012 honda now moves above volkswagen vw whose market share has dipped from 319 to 241 in the first five months of the ongoing fiscal year in this period the share of maruti the countrys largest car maker has dropped from 403 a year ago to 366 the other gainers are mahindra mahindra and tata motorsbse 141 whilst hyundai and the detroit giants general motors and ford joined marutibse 080 and vw on the list ofmarket share losers its the brio that has helped us gain share and we will sustain it says j sen senior vp marketing honda cars india some 12000 brios were sold in the april to august out of the companys total sales of just under 30000 in the same period honda car officials say that the honda city sedan which was under pressure from the vento from vw has been able to keep its nose ahead quite convincingly in the april to august period honda sold 11478 citys and vw 9800 ventos honda however has its task cut out growing further from here particularly at the higher end the accord the premium sedan and compact crossover honda crv have been grappling with slowing growth and sen admits that the buying sentiments of customers in thse segments are skewed more towards diesel models sen does add that a higher customer satisfaction rating and efforts to tell customers that petrol variants are still competitive compared to diesel are paying off the japanese carmaker does not yet have a diesel model in its india portfolio honda is counting on the brio automatic which will be launched next month followed by the honda city cng variant to keep up the momentum toyota for its part has benefited from the competitive pricing of compact car liva sales have spurted by 80 to over 11000 units in the april to august period of fiscal 2013 over a year ago the other contributor has been the workhorse multiutility vehicle the innova whose sales shot up by 64 to over 33000 units in the first five months of the fiscal year toyota now plans to launch utility vehicles on the etios platform a mumbai dealer who did not want to be named said that japanese automakers are now providing unprecedented support by speeding up delivery after recovering from 2011s earthquake and tsunami and offering price cuts to gain market share