The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations on Tuesday said retail vehicle sales in the country declined 42% to 9.84 lakh units in June 2020, adding that it expected a similar trend in July albeit with some green shoots seen in demand.
Total vehicle sales stood at 16.97 lakh units in June 2019. However, sequentially, last month's sales have shown a growth from about 2.02 lakh units in May 2020.
Except for tractors — for which sales grew nearly 11% to 45,358 units — all vehicle segments continued to decline. As per the data released, passenger vehicle sales declined 38.3% to about 1.26 lakh units, two-wheeler sales fell nearly 41% to over 7.9 lakh units and commercial vehicles slumped 84% to 10,509 units. FADA President Ashish Harsharaj Kale said Unlock 1.0 coupled with an increase in rural demand gave a boost to vehicle registrations in June compared with May.
He added this was not indicative of actual demand as lockdown woes continued in some areas along with supply side constraints.
“Overall weak economic sentiment coupled with a rising number of Covid-19 patients has led to weak consumer confidence especially in Tier-1 cities... Rural market lead by a robust crop situation of the previous harvest and timely arrival of monsoons has witnessed demand recovery in comparison to urban areas, therefore leading the surge in retail sales of tractors as well as positively impacting 2-wheelers and small commercial vehicles,” he added.
Mr. Kale said that assuming there were no further lockdowns, vehicle registrations would see somewhat similar trends and would mostly better the June numbers, with further green shoots of demand in newer geographies and segments.
“Annual outlook continues to be grim; projected sales will see de-growthof 15-35% across segments in FY21, except for tractors, which look set to clock a positive annual growth.”
