The month of August too, has not brought any respite for the car makers operating in India, as the domestic car sales continued to behave adamantly, owing to the low car demand and swelling interest rates.
According to the figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), it has been reported that the domestic passenger car sales, yet again, experienced a downfall of 10.08 per cent. The nosedive took the total sales to a worrisome 1,44,516 units in August as compared to 1,60,713 units in the same month last year.
However, it was also mentioned in the report that the commercial vehicles celebrated a growth of 22.62 per cent in sales, making the figure climb to 64,248 units in the month of August. The previous year's figure of 52,394 units was surpassed quite commendably. Taking into consideration all the categories, a growth of 11.85 per cent to 1,412,945 units was registered in August, as against 1,263,239 units in the same month last year.
It is important to note that the condition of the three biggest names in the car industry namely Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor and Tata Motors still remains critical. All the three giants witnessed an astounding decline in domestic sales, albeit compact cars continued with the unparalleled performance.
Maruti’s struggle, owing to the labour unrest at Manesar continued, adversely affecting the production process. In what can be considered as a hard decision, the company advertently reduced the amount of production earlier this month, following slackness of demand. As a result, its domestic sales declined to a staggering 17 per cent to 77,086 units, as against 92,674 units in the previous year.
Analysts Srinivas Rao and Amyn Pirani, working with Deutsche Bank said, “Continue to lag our forecasts. The volumes are weak even after considering the adverse impact of disruption in production at the company’s Manesar plant. Our FY12E domestic volume forecast of 1.2 million (6.1% year-on-year growth) implies a growth rate of 14.3% over the next seven months against a 7.4% decline in year-to-date volumes.”
Hyundai Motor Company registered a fall of almost 7 per cent in domestic sales, reaching at 26,677 units compared to the 28,601 units sold last year. Albeit, its exports witnessed a rise. Arvind Saxena, Director, Marketing and Sales, said that “the market continues to be tough and there are no signs of recovery in the immediate future.”
The trend of downfall also gripped the factory dispatches of Tata Nano which declined by 85 per cent to 1,202 units. The sales of other Tata cars dipped by 33 per cent to 16,829 units.
However, amid the unimpressive performance by the big three, analysts forecast a silver lining in the wake of the festive season, which is just around the corner.
It is interesting to see that Toyota Kirloskar Motors sold 84 per cent more vehicles in August at 11,693 units, owing to high demand for its Etios and Liva models. Ford India too kept at bay, the menace of low sales by reporting 9 per cent more sales.
Thus, the frantic automobile camp has to pull up its socks furthermore, in order to live up to the expectations of the Indian car buyers.
