Luxury cars, mobile phones hot in India

Have money, will buy Mercedes and mobile phone.

That seems to be the mantra in India, where sales of luxury cars and mobile subscriptions are bucking the overall trend of lower consumer demand and slowing economic growth.

India's benchmark stock market is down more than half in 2008, industrial production has fallen and analysts expect economic growth could slow to below 7 percent in the year to March 2009 from 9 percent or higher in the past three years.