MUMBAI: India’s car makers have reason to cheer, having got a festive season bump after six months of plummeting sales. Sales rose 5-7% this Navratri, Dussehra and Dhanteras from the year-earlier numbers for the same festive period. To be sure, the uptick comes after sales have dropped by double digits every month from April to September. Two-wheeler sales haven’t seen as much of a festive surge, though the performance has improved over previous months.Top two car makers Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai registered 7% and 10% growth, respectively, in the Navratri to Dussehra period. Deliveries on Dhanteras, October 25, exceeded double-digit growth from the previous year for the two carmakers, which account for 65-70% of the market. Third-largest firm Mahindra registered a 100% spike in the sale of utility vehicles on Dhanteras.Maruti Suzuki delivered more than 60,000 cars in the 10 days of Navratri to Dussehra (October 8), whereas Hyundai Motor delivered over 25,000 cars. On Dhanteras, Maruti Suzuki delivered over 45,000 cars whereas Hyundai delivered about 14,000 cars.Maruti Suzuki sales and marketing executive director Shashank Srivastava declined to give specific numbers but told ET there was higher off take during the festive season.“The absolute retails in Navratri and Dussehra were higher than 10-day festivities in the previous year and the momentum has continued for Dhanteras,” Srivastava said. “There is definitely a much better sentiment in the market place, but one can also say that market has revived only after seeing the momentum in the next few months.”The month-long period between the start of Navratri and Diwali typically accounts for about double the monthly average of the year for two and four-wheeler sales. A large part of this demand is in the North and East, which together account for 50-55% of total sales of two-wheeler and passenger cars. At its height though the festive season would often see 3.5-4 times monthly sales.Hyundai Motor India national sales head Vikas Jain confirmed 10% growth during the Navratri and said that growth was even better during Dhanteras.“Compared to last year, the retail is up by 30% approximately on Dhanteras,” Jain said. “While in October things have looked up compared to last month (September), compared to October 2018, industry will still be negative by 7 to 8%. But this is recovery compared to degrowth of 30% or 20%. Also, this time all segments have moved up. And other positive is both urban and rural markets have grown.”The numbers above are retail numbers and not despatches. To be sure, wholesale despatches have declined for 13 straight months for car makers and so far this financial year, they are down by a significant 24% to 1.33 million units.Demand has also picked up at the luxury end of the market. Mercedes Benz, after delivering more than 200 cars during the Navratri and Dussehra (in Gujarat and Mumbai alone), sold another 600 on Dhanteras across the country. The company said its top-of-the-line SUV, the GLE, is sold out for three months. BMW India said its top SUV, the X7, is also sold out.New entrants Kia and MG Motors delivered about 3,000 vehicles between them on Dhanteras.On the two-wheeler front, both Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto said that the market decline had been arrested over the past month or so and retail sales have moved into positive territory.Hero MotoCorp, country’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, has seen low single-digit growth in the festive season and current momentum has continued even after Dussehra, head of sales Sanjay Bhan said in a post-earnings conference call.Hero MotoCorp and Maruti Suzuki maintained that it would be too early to take a call on the sustainability of the rise beyond the festive season. Maruti Suzuki has not given any guidance for this financial year. Hero MotoCorp said it will be closely looking at the extent of rabi sowing in the third week of November in order to gauge future trends.