For the first time in nine years Passenger car sales may decline

The automobile market of India has been among the fastest growing auto markets in Asia and the boom in sales witnessed in the last couple of years has made all global auto majors to include Indian auto market in their roadmap. Now it has been reported that the passenger car sales may decline for the first time in nine years with industry body SIAM stating that it may miss the target of 0-2 per cent growth, after revising it three times for 2011-12 fiscal.

Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) Director-General, Vishnu Mathur said that, “For domestic car sales, if we go ahead with what we are doing at the current rate, then we will miss our target. Car segment is significantly down till now.” According to the figures released by SIAM, domestic passenger car sales have fallen by 1.19 per cent to 15, 74,847 units during April-January this fiscal from 15, 93,850 units in the year-ago period. He was also quoted as saying “If we do not see a growth of 10-12 per cent in the remaining two months of the fiscal, then we will miss the projected target.” It was mentioned that the industry is not hoping such a big jump as deterrent factors like high interest rates are unlikely to come down in the near future.

The reports mentioned that last month, SIAM had lowered the growth forecast for the third time to 0-2 percent for the ongoing fiscal citing unfavourable macro-economic conditions, but said it could see a jump of 11-13 per cent in 2012-13 fiscal. Last time domestic car sales witnessed a decline was in 2002-03 when it fell 2.09 per cent to 5, 53,022 units from the previous fiscal. SIAM Senior Director, Sugato Sen was quoted as saying “The domestic car sales may not be able to come out of the ongoing journey in the negative territory in this fiscal even as the segment saw three consecutive months of growth till January this year.”

It was said that in January 2012, domestic passenger car sales grew 7.2 per cent to 1, 96,013 units from 1, 82,852 units in the same month last year. In November last year the car sales witnessed a turnaround after four consecutive months of contraction, rising by 7 per cent. It was followed by a high single-digit growth of 8.49 per cent in December 2011 as heavy discounts lured customers to showrooms. During January 2012, the country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India made a turnaround in the domestic market after seven consecutive months of drop, with the firm seeing 2.42 per cent rise in sales to 88,377 units. The sales of Hyundai Motor India grew by 11.4 per cent to 33,756 units from January 2011, while Tata Motors’ sales increased 10.79 per cent to 28,529 units. According to SIAM, total two-wheeler sales in January 2012 increased 13.63 per cent to 11,13,831 units from 9,80,243 units in the same period of the previous year. Motorcycle sales grew 10.51 per cent to 8,25,887 units from 7,47,309 units. Market leader Hero MotoCorp witnessed a growth of 10.28 per cent at 4,66,981 units compared to the same month a year ago, SIAM said.Automobile News