Despite fragmented recovery in demand, passenger car industry in the country has ended the year 2015 with about 10 per cent growth in sales. Also, total car sales in the country crossed two million units for the first time. The previous highest was 1,998,703 units in 2012.
The calendar year saw passenger vehicle (include cars, utility vehicles (UVs) and vans), heavy trucks and buses, light passenger segment and scooters reporting positive growth, while light trucks, three wheelers and bikes registered fall in volumes.
Domestic passenger car sales rose 9.8 per cent to 2,034,015 units in 2015 as against 1,852,545 units in 2014. UVs reported a rise of 3.58 per cent at 565,638 units when compared with 546,088 units. However, vans reported a very marginal rise to 173,092 units from 172,103 units.
“Positive consumer sentiment, new launches and increasing disposable incomes are driving the growth in car sales,” according Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association.
“With RBI cutting repo rate by 75 bps this fiscal, lower interest rates on passenger vehicle loans helped support demand,” it added.
The cost of ownership remained stable in 2015-16 for petrol vehicles. For diesel vehicles, it is estimated to be lower by 2-4 per cent as compared to FY15 with petrol and diesel expected to decline by 6-8 per cent and 12-14 per cent respectively for 2015-16.
In medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment, trucks reported a growth of 31.39 per cent at 237,952 units when compared with 181,105 units. Bus segment’s volumes stood at 42,436 units as against 34,529 units.
In the case of light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment, passenger category managed to post 11.37 per cent growth at 47,814 units, while small trucks remained in negative lane with 6.7 per cent fall in volumes at 324,389 units (347,702 units).
With robust demand for automatic scooters, total sales in the scooter segment grew 12.94 per cent at 4,880,117 units (4,320,925), while motorcycle sales, hit by poor rural demand, fell by 3.42 per cent at 10,523,909 units (10,896,687 units). Moped sales fell by 6.38 per cent at 718,296 units (767,275 units).
In three wheelers, both goods and passenger segments reported 5.14 per cent and 2.86 per cent fall in sales respectively.
