For over past nine months, market conditions have been pretty dismal for passenger car sales. Reportedly, the rupee plunge has also affected the automotive market of India. Notably, rupee has seen a high depreciation in its value against the US dollar, resulting in more chaos for the already depressed market. Interestingly, amid such dismal and unsecured environment, the auto major, Maruti Suzuki had recorded a surge in its sales in August 2013.
Evidently, this is the first time that the passenger car sales has jumped back to its positive reign in the past ten months. Here, however, it must be noted that surge in sales of Maruti Suzuki is based on low base numbers taken from the previous year. Keeping this in mind, many industry experts are of a belief that the yearly performance of the Indian auto market is more likely to record an overall dip for the ongoing fiscal. Notably, the auto market has been hit adversely due to rising fuel prices and increase in the interest rates of auto loans.
In the month of August, overall car sales jumped by a margin of 15.4 per cent. These numbers owe much to the shut down of Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant in the last year. As a result of this shut down, the auto maker recorded a steep rise of 51 per cent in sales during August 2013, under the review of low base figures. Consequently, such a big increment in demand is reflected as a positive impact on the sales of the overall auto market, which virtually lifted the long and sustained nine months negative streak. Other segments, however, continue to record a dip in sales as utility vehicles slumped by 13 per cent in the last month and van sales dipped sharply by 19 per cent.
Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers', apex body of Indian auto industry, inferred that a one-time increment in sales during August will have a least impact on the yearly performance of the auto industry. Sugato Sen, the Deputy Director General SIAM, "Passenger car sales have been muted since November last year and there has been no fundamental change that would lead to any change in the domestic demand. We would be reviewing our full year forecast next month and expect sales to remain negative in 2014 fiscal.”
Obviously such a remark is indicative of a poor performance of product lines of major industry players like Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Toyota Kirloskar Motor. Notably, these auto majors have recorded a negative sales in August 2013. However, Ford Motor India and Honda Car India reported marginal positive gains during the period owing to their new product launches. Jnaneshwar Sen, Senior Vice President (Marketing & Sales) of Honda Car India, was quoted as saying “There has been consistent demand for our Amaze sedan and are virtually sold out for the next three month."
Only good thing for the automotive industry has been the 4 per cent jump in sales of motorcycles. Notably, scooters remain in high demand and recorded a 21 per cent growth in the month. Overall figures for two-wheeler segment indicate 7 per cent year-on-year growth, which is highest as compared to other segments of the Indian auto market.
