Auto sales ride to new high in October

A total of 389,714 cars and utility vehicles were sold last month, a 15.9% increase from 336,330 vehicles sold a year earlier, showed data from industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Automakers in the country mostly report wholesale despatches from factories and not retail sales to customers.

This is the tenth straight month of the passenger vehicle industry breaching its highest-ever sales. Growth in the passenger vehicle segment was supported by demand for utility vehicles, which now account for more than half the passenger vehicles sold in the local market.

Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd said the festive season has gone well so far, helping the company increase its market share by 1.3 percentage points to 43% in October. “January onwards, every month has been a best-ever month for the industry, which is a very positive sign. With the semiconductor crisis fading, automakers have been able to increase production which helped the industry report its highest-ever sales for any month in October. Retails too have been good, which have encouraged dealers to build up stocks for Diwali,” he said.

Tarun Garg, chief operating officer at Hyundai Motor India Ltd concurred and said, “Booking inflow remain healthy. Despite the geopolitical uncertainties, demand momentum has remained strong which shows the resilience of the domestic market.”

In fact, customer demand was strong across segments with three-wheelers and two-wheelers clocking healthy growth in October. While three-wheeler sales grew 42.1% to 77,000 units, two-wheelers recorded a 20.1% rise to more than 1.89 million units.

Vinod Aggarwal, president, SIAM said, “Both passenger vehicles and three-wheelers have posted the highest-ever sales of October, while the two-wheeler segment has also posted good sales in the month of October 2023. All the three segments have posted double-digit growth.”

“This growth momentum is encouraging for the industry which has been enabled by sustained conducive policies of the government and the ongoing festive season,” Aggarwal said.

In the two-wheeler segment, market leader Hero MotoCorp said it expects demand to remain strong on the back of recent product launches in the premium segment and good consumer sentiment in the festive season.

Industry executives project passenger vehicle sales to cross 4 million units for the first time this financial year but warned that growth may slow after the festive season due to a high base.