Festive season powers vehicles sales to new highs

The festive season demand has proved to be a fuel to passenger vehicles like no other, powering sales to monthly highs during the successive months of October and November, data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) show.

The highlight for the year seems to be that passenger vehicles could close the calendar year cruising past the four million sales figures.

In October the total production of passenger vehicles, three-wheelers, two-wheelers and quadricycle stood at 2.6 million units (26,21,248). Passenger vehicles recorded a 15.9% year-on-year growth a record.

This performance was followed up by another stellar show in November, when passenger vehicle in the country rose in single digits, but considering the high base on which the growth took place, sales zoomed to another record level.
last month, on a high base, to the highest-yet levels recorded for the month of November, driven by robust consumer demand during the festivals in the first two weeks.

However, applying the metric of annual growth rate in wholesale despatches from factories to dealers, the growth moderated to 3.7%, a rather pale rate compared to the blistering 15.9% in October. In absolute numbers, the score for November hit 334,130 units.

“All segments of the automobile industry witnessed robust growth during the festival season which ended in the first part of November. Commercial Vehicles sales matched last year’s levels,” Siam president Vinod Aggarwal said as reported by The Economic Times.

The sales of two-wheelers grew 31.3% y-o-y to 1,623,399 units in November and three-wheeler sales rose 30.8% to 59,738 units.

Siam director general Rajesh Menon emphasised that the sales of passenger vehicles was “the highest ever sales in the month of November”. Menon added that three-wheelers sales in November were a shade below the monthly peak for November which was recorded in 2017. Sales of two-wheelers too fell just short of the peak recorded in November 2018.

The rural sector also appeared to be beneficial to the two-wheeler segment with higher sales in the marriage season.

The young and speed-loving population are also kicking up demand for premium two-wheelers.
Entry motorcycles account for half the volumes in the market, while an increasing share is going to the premium segment, which is growing at almost double the speed of the overall industry. Siam bosses indicated that if the momentum is maintained, the industry could scale the earlier peak in just about two more years.