Passenger vehicle sales continued to slide in strong double-digits last month as uncertainty over GST rate cut on automobiles, weak market sentiment and the shradh period prompted customers to defer their buying plans.
Shradh is a two-week period in the Hindu calendar when people usually put off any big-ticket purchases such as houses or automobiles.
According to industry estimates, passenger vehicle sales fell by around 24% to 223,000 units in September. However, good monsoons and increased liquidity in the market helped the industry fare better in wholesale volumes sequentially, which rose by around 13% over August 2019.
Industry numbers were, however, spoilt by market leader Maruti Suzuki which posted a drop in domestic sales by 27.1% to 110,454 units in September. Over August, the company’s volumes rose by 18.5% to cross the one-lakh mark last month.
Maruti Suzuki MD Kenichi Ayukawa said while a meaningful recovery will take time, things are looking up.
Hyundai Motor sold 40,705 units in the domestic market last month, which is a decline of 14.8% over the year-ago period.
Hero MotoCorp’s sales fell 20.4% to 612,204 units in September. Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India reported a drop of 12.6% to see 485,659 units in the month under review.
In September, Honda Cars India’s sales dropped 37% to 9,301 units. Homegrown auto majors M&M and Tata Motors saw wholesale volumes decline 33% (to 14,333 units) and 56% (to 8,097 units), respectively. At Toyota Kirloskar Motor, sales fell 18% to 10,203 units.
Tata Motors said the company continued to focus on retail sales to trim its inventory.
No comments:
Post a Comment