Passenger vehicle sales in the country continued to decline for the 11th straight month in September 2019, even as the auto industry on Friday said it has started seeing a reversal in consumer sentiment during the last few days of the month owing to the beginning of festival season and high discounts.
According to the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), wholesale passenger vehicle (PV) sales last month fell 23.69% to over 2.23 lakh units as against about 2.92 lakh units in the year-ago month. Month-on-month, however, the sales are up 13% from about 1.96 lakh units sold in August 2019.
Last month, cars sales declined 33.40% to about 1.31 lakh units, while utility vehicles sales rose 5.5% to 81,625 units. “The de-growth has continued... but we are seeing some green shoots. Both, September and October put together cover all the festivals this time. Most of us have seen good growth in the last 10-12 days. If we compare retail sales in current Navratra days with Navratras last year, we have seen growth... the discounts are also much higher this time,” said Rajan Wadhera, president, SIAM.
He added that this was mainly due to an improvement in consumer sentiment driven by festive season, high discounts and recent government announcements.
Data showed that commercial vehicles (CVs) sales, which are seen as an indicator of economic activity in the country, slumped over 39% to 58,419 units. This is the steepest fall for CVs since January 2009. Within CVs, medium and heavy CVs tumbled 62.11% to 14,855 units while light CVs were down 23% to 43,564 units. Noting that CVs sales are led by economic growth and not consumer sentiment, Mr. Wadhera expressed hope that the recent measures announced by the government along with good monsoons will help generate demand for these vehicles.
Likewise, two-wheelers sales were down 22% to about 16.56 lakh units. Motorcycle sales, which largely reflect the demand in rural India, slumpedwere down 23.29% to over 10.43 lakh units — the lowest sales in about two decades.
“The farmer sentiment is mixed. In the areas where there are floods, it is bad, but in the other areas, we are hoping that with a bumper crop, there will be more money in the hands of the farmers which will generate more demand,” he said, adding that all indicators show that the rural demand will pick up.
Retail sales
Retail sales, as per vehicle registrations from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ Vahan dashboard, show a better picture. According to this data, PV sales rose bywere up nearly almost 8% in September to about 2.53 lakh units, while two-wheeler sales grew 6.5% to about 13.39 lakh units. Sales of commercial vehicles droppedwere down by 9.15% to 72,693 units.
While Mr. Wadhera admitted that retail sales are better than wholesales, he, however, added that the available data is not “yet authentic.” A SIAM official explained that some States do not report this data and also the data is very dynamic and hence, not comparable.
