Car major Maruti Udyog ltd (MUL) on Monday posted a 5.1 per cent rise in total sales for December 2005. Stating that it is the highest ever sales in any December month in the company’s history, the company said it sold 46,079 units against 43,828 units in same month last year.

The domestic sales grew 16.4 per cent at 43,251 units for December 2005 as compared to 37,153 units in the same month last year, a company statement said. The company, which is India’s largest car maker by volumes, however, said that exports decreased 57.6 per cent to 2828 units against 6,675 units in December 2004. The company’s sales volume in the domestic A2 segment which has the line up of Alto, Wagon R, Zen and Swift grew 36.6 per cent in December 2005.

The A2 segment sales increased to 28,367 units in the last month of 2005 as compared to 20,759 units in the previous period. The sales of Maruti 800, which falls in the A1 segment, however, declined 8 per cent to 7,252 units whereas the same were 7,885 units in December 2004.

At one point, it was Maruti 800 which used to be the most popular car in the Maruti portfolio. However, with expanding Indian budgets, the segment above Maruti 800 is finding more favours with the customers.

Tata Indicom on Monday announced a new Re 1.20 for three minutes tariff plan for its Walky customers who can now make calls to any mobile within the state across 20 circles.These rates, which offer three times more talk time per call than a normal landline, will be applicable on the company’s "Home 2 Mobile" tariffs and available for postpaid customers at a reduced one-time entry cost of Rs 1,602.

Tata’s have taken this step of introducing the new postpaid tariff plan to suit the varying needs for their residential and business customers in the desktop phone category and have included features like line hunting, pooling, voice mail, high-speed Internet access and reduction in SMS charges on Walky instruments."The Indian telecom industry has been witnessing a tremendous growth in the mobile category and customers today tend to call mobile numbers more often than a fixed number. We wish to change the paradigm by offering cheaper calls to mobile phones and are confident that our unmatched and affordable offerings for residential and business customers will receive tremendous response.

"The market response to our Walky product has been very positive and we are keen to further grow this category by offering huge savings to our customers at great value tariffs," said Mr Darryl Green, chief executive officer, Tata Teleservices.