Sales rev up as OEMs prepare for festive season

The July 2022 wholesale numbers for three segments — passenger vehicles, three- and two-wheelers — released by SIAM suggest a good momentum in PV and two-wheeler sales. Ajit Dalvi does the number crunching.

 India’s automotive sector recorded total sales of 17,06,545 units translating into a 10.61 percent year-on-year increase (July 2021: 15,42,716). While this augurs well for the industry per se and also reflects strong passenger vehicle (PV) and two-wheeler demand for new models, July numbers also indicate that OEMs are gearing up for the festive season ahead when new vehicle purchases are the order of the day.

July, which is typically a lean month for new buys, can be seen to be a month when vehicle manufacturers ramp up deliveries to their showrooms and dealers across the country, to ensure speedy model availability to customers. The PV segment, which is seeing players like Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra having sizeable waiting periods for their popular models, saw total despatches of 293,865 units, up 11 percent (July 2021: 264,442). The 16-OEM total would have easily crossed the 300,000-unit mark if it weren't for the fact that Tata Motors does not provide its monthly wholesale numbers to SIAM.

Of the total sales, cars comprised 143,522 units or 49 percent while SUVs with 137,104 units had a 46 percent share, and vans with 13,239 units took 4.50 percent of the share. Clearly, the supply-demand mismatch in SUVs is evident in the segment’s reduced share, considering for the past year, every second PV sold in India is an SUV. Nonetheless, all three sub-segments — cars (10 percent), UVs (11 percent and vans (28 percent) — saw YoY growth.