Country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki sold 1.37 lakh units in May, higher by 11.3 percent over a year-ago month, which was way below analysts' expectations due to the transitionary impact of the Dzire.

The growth was led by its best selling cars like Alto, Baleno & WagonR, and also by utility vehicles like Vitara Brezza and Ertiga.

The company sold 1.23 lakh units in the corresponding month of last year.

Domestic sales during the month grew by 15.5 percent to 1.31 lakh units compared with same month previous year but exports fell sharply by 36.3 percent to 6,286 units year-on-year.

Motilal Oswal had estimated total sales growth for the company at around 21.6 percent for May.

Maruti said its passenger car sales increased 8.7 percent year-on-year to 95,047 units in the month gone by, against 26.6 percent in April.

Mini car segment (Alto, WagonR) showed 18.1 percent growth while compact car segment (Swift, Baleno, Dzire etc) reported a slow growth of 10.1 percent YoY compared with previous month's 39.1 percent growth due to transitionary issues for the Dzire.

Sales of Ciaz, which comes in mid-size segment, dropped sharply by 8.9 percent due to withdrawal of incentives on hybrid cars.

Utility vehicles sales growth during the month was healthy at 66.3 percent, largely driven by Vitara Brezza and Ertiga.

At 10:59 hours IST, the stock price was quoting at Rs 7,156.00, down Rs 58.90, or 0.82 percent after hitting a life-time high of Rs 7,249.30 in early trade today.

Posted by Sunil Shankar Matkar