Festivities Bring In Some Luck For Motown

With almost all festivities occurring during October, India’s car makers saw a hint of respite from sales downtrend that the motown was suffering for the last few months.

- Ritwik Sinha

Major car makers saw the sales graph recovering as passenger vehicles sales moved northbound, however, commercial vehicles continues to face headwinds from the domestic market as large buyers, especially fleet owners who are waiting for new-year model change and prebuying in January led by discounts.

During October, passenger vehicle saw a marginal growth of 1.20 percent at 28,447 units while the two-wheeler posted a single digit decline of 9.08 percent at 1,807,720 units last month. It’s the commercial vehicle segment which registered the steepest decline of 25.74 per cent at 61,948 units.

The country’s largest passenger car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) rose 4.5 percent in October 2019 from the year earlier, the company said as it became the first automobile manufacturer in the country to report growth amid an economic downturn.

Maruti Suzuki’s despatches to dealers stood at 144,277 units in October compared to 138,100 units in the same month last year. Its despatches of passenger vehicles rose 2.3 percent to 139,121, growing for the first time since March. In September, the car maker had reported a 27 percent fall in despatches.

This is the first instance in FY20 where the carmaker has reported positive year-on-year (y-o-y) growth, partly triggered by a surge in festive demand and partly on account of a low base from last year.

It was the only carmaker to report wholesale growth driven by increased despatches of its compact cars, utility vehicles and its light commercial vehicles, even as its entry-level, or the most affordable category, continued to report a y-o-y decline. Maruti Suzuki sells WagonR, Celerio, Swift, Swift Dzire, Baleno and Ignis models in its compact portfolio. Its UVs comprise Vitara Brezza, S-Cross, Ertiga and the recently launched XL6.