Car sales in the country grew for the tenth month in a row in August, indicating that the four-wheeler segment is steadily moving on the path to recovery.
However, poor demand in the rural markets continued to be a concern as motorcycle sales dipped 9.59 per cent in August, pushing the two-wheeler sales growth into the negative zone.
Last month, passenger car sales rose 6.06 per cent to 1.63 lakh units from 1.54 lakh units in August 2014, partly driven by the launch of new models, as per data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Thursday.
“We are on a slow and steady but not a very explosive growth path. This is the 10th consecutive month of increase in car sales,” SIAM Director General Vishnu Mathur told reporters here.
New model launches such as >Honda Jazz , Ford Aspire, Hyundai Creta and Maruti Suzuki's > S-Cross partly helped in increasing the passenger vehicles numbers. Mr Mathur added that while the new launches did play a role in growth, there is a slow wider recovery taking place.
“Out of the 17 players in passenger vehicles segment, nine witnessed growth in August. Gradually growth may become even broad-based,” he said.
The total passenger vehicle sales (which includes cars, utility vehicles and vans) rose 4 per cent to 2.22 lakh units, as per the data.
Two-wheeler segment However, in the two-wheeler segment, >total sales declined by nearly 3 per cent. As per SIAM data, while scooter sales were up at 15.6 per cent to 4.27 lakh units, the motorcycle sales declined to 8.23 lakh units from 9.10 lakh units in August 2014.
“Demand for motorcycle has suffered due to a slowdown in rural economy. It is a real area of concern as decline in motorcycle sales has brought down the overall vehicles sales,” Mr Mathur said.
In the motorcycle category, market leader Hero MotoCorp saw its bike sales decline by 15.46 percent to 4,13,169 units as against 4,88,739 units in August last year. Bajaj Auto had a marginal rise at 1,37,948 units in August as against 1,37,347 units in the year-ago month. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) saw its bike sales decline by 17.46 percent to 1,26,378 units as against 1,53,120 units in August last year.
Mean while, Scooter sales, however, were up 15.66 percent in August at 4,27,165 units as compared with 3,69,323 units in the year-ago period. HMSI maintained its leadership position in segment posting a growth of 13.33 percent at 2,46,791 units as against 2,17,751 units in the corresponding month last year.
He added that the decline in light commercial vehicles (LCV), whose sales were down 9 per cent to 29,182 units, is also a cause for concern of the industry.
Overall, however, the commercial vehicles segment (including medium and heavy commercial vehicles) saw a growth of 7.58 per cent to 52,198 units in August, SIAM said.
Vehicle sales across categories registered a decline of 2.07 per cent to 16,26,148 units from 16,60,512 units in August 2014, SIAM said.
POINTERS :
1. New model launches such as Honda Jazz, Ford Aspire, Hyundai Creta and Maruti Suzuki's S-Cross partly helped in increasing the passenger vehicles numbers.
2. Out of the 17 players in passenger vehicles segment, nine witnessed growth in August.
3. The decline in light commercial vehicles (LCV), whose sales were down 9 per cent to 29,182 units, is a cause for concern of the industry.
4. Overall, the commercial vehicles segment (including medium and heavy commercial vehicles) saw a growth of 7.58 per cent to 52,198 units in August.
