Domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales in September declined for the third consecutive month to more than 2.92 lakh units, leading to the expectation that the segment would grow at the lower end of the annual growth forecast of 9-11%.
Last month, the PV sales declined by 5.61% year-on-year, while the fall was 2.46% in August and 2.71% in July. Interestingly, the segment sales had grown by almost 20% in the April-July quarter. The poor performance in the past quarter has pulled down the growth in the first half of the fiscal to 6.88% year-on-year.
SIAM president Rajan Wadhera said that the high growth in the first quarter this year came on the back of low base during April-June 2017 when customers held back purchases in anticipation of decline in prices post implementation of GST from July 1, 2017.
“…in the second quarter, we have seen that the growth has tapered. One of the reasons is that Navratras last year were in September, this year they fall in October,” he added.
Festive sales
On the outlook for the remaining year, Mr. Wadhera said the growth would continue to be positive with the onset of the festive season, adding that the sales would be slightly higher or similar to the first half, when the industry sold more than 17.44 lakh PVs. "For the entire fiscal, we had a forecast of 9-11% growth but we are now looking more at the lower end of around 9%," he added.
He also said that the sales were mainly driven by rural demand and new model launches. As per SIAM data, two-wheeler sales last month grew 4.12% to more than 21.26 lakh units and 10.07% in the first half of the year to over 1.15 crore units. Likewise, total commercial vehicle sales grew 24.14% to 95,867 units in September and 37.82% over 4.87 lakh units in the April-September period.
