Industry experts are of a view that the slowdown in Indian auto market shall be worse than the figures predicted by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Sources close to the development process have revealed that the inventory at dealers have increased by around 40 per cent, in comparison with the figures of 2012. Expressing his views on the same, the Secretary General at Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), Gulshan Ahuja was quoted as saying, “The average inventory at the dealers' end is more than two months. Given that there are 2,800-3,000 passenger car dealers in the country, if one considers an average of Rs. 1 crore worth of inventory per dealer, it means dealers are sitting on an inventory worth around Rs. 3,000 crore.”
Reportedly, last year, the average inventory per-dealer was worth Rs. 60 lakh, which stood around Rs. 1,800 crore nationally. At that time, the average inventory at dealers was of around 3-4 weeks. Now, the average inventory at dealers has increased to Rs. 1 crore. Presently, the inventories piled up at dealers' end account for around two months, which reflects the significant downfall in the demand. Speaking on the same, a dealer claimed, “Since March this year, sales are down by around 35 per cent at the dealers' end. In good times, the inventory turnaround time is 24-30 days. A dealer always maintains a month's inventory. But, due to slow off take, the inventory level has gone up to around two months."
According to the sales figures revealed by SIAM, the demand for passenger vehicles dipped 5.3 per cent between April and August 2013, under the review of same tenure in last year. Reportedly, in passenger vehicles segment, the demand for passenger cars, utility vehicles and vans dwindled 5.8 per cent, 3.11 per cent and 6.24 per cent, respectively. Earlier, the auto industry lobby said that as compared with the figures of last fiscal, the Indian auto market could start at lower sales this year. The Deputy General of SIAM, Sugato Sen said, “If we have to match last year's 2.7 million units, we need to be selling over 200,000 units each month. But in the past three months, we have sold less than that.
