February auto sales: Renault India car sales up 158%, driven by Kwid

Renault India said on Tuesday that its domestic car sales stood at 8,834 units in February 2016, up 158 percent from 3,419 units sold in February 2015. 

Though the company did not give model-wise details, it is believed that sales of the Kwid drove the volume growth for the company in February, as has been the case for the past few months now.

The fully-owned subsidiary of Renault S.A.S. France said in a statement that its customer orders for the Kwid had "crossed the 1,00,000 mark" and it has ramped up the capacity at its Chennai plant. Its existing capacity at the Chennai plant is 4,80,000 cars per annum.

Besides the Kwid, the company sells the Fluence, luxury SUV Koleos, compact car Pulse, SUV Duster, premium sedan Scala and MPV Lodgy.

In his reaction to the Union Budget 2016-2017 presented on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Renault India's Country CEO and Managing Director Sumit Sawhney said that the government should have also introduced "scrappage incentive scheme" to keep away old cars off the roads, apart from proposing levies.

In the budget, Jaitley had proposed to levy one percent cess on small, petrol and CNG cars, 2.5 percent on diesel cars of certain capacity and four percent on other higher engine capacity vehicles and SUVs.

Meanwhile, the company intends to export its entry level hatchback Kwid to Sri Lanka from this month.