HYDERABAD: Hyderabad in deed is the place of Yuppies.

The upward mobility, a characterstic spending habits of metro cities, is very much visible in the automobile market of the city. If the State capital has sold as many as 74 Mercedes Benz cars in just seven months, it had sold 31,854 cars of all brands during the same period.

Call it the real estate boom or rapid development of IT and ITES sector, people living in the State capital, just can't wait to upgrade themselves from being motorcycle-riders to proud car owners. Or being the owner of a small car to mid-segment cars or even to the luxury segment cars.

Mid-segment

Sources in the automobile industry say other cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada in the State are far behind Hyderabadin sales. If 31,854 cars were bought in the city

(April-October `06), just 3,886 were bought in Vizag and 2,774 in Vijayawada.

In a heartening for car-makers, that Hyderabadis are preferring mid-segment cars (A2 in automobile jargon) like Maruti Alto, Swift, Indica, Getz and Santro, etc. Nearly 67 per cent of the cars sold in the city are in this segment. The A3 segment - Esteem, Baleno, Accent, Fiesta, Aveo - constituted 20 per cent, while the A4 segment - Octavia, Honda Civic / Accord, Corolla - are of 3.5 per cent.

A surprising finding is that the most popular 800 CC car (A1 segment) of Maruti now has a market share of just 6.5 per cent. That indicates the preference of people migrating directly to the A2 segment, indicating that a motorcycle owner no longer shifts to the small car segment and then to mid-segment. The easy availability of loans and increase in income limits are stated to be the chief reasons for this trend. Incidentally, the latest entry into the car market, the Zen Estilo has become the rage of the town. Within two days, more than 150 cars have been booked, said Vinay Saboo of Saboo RKS Motors.

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