Automobile retail sales zoomed over 48 percent with 20,94,378 vehicles going off showrooms in October alone as faster dispatches from manufacturers enabled dealers to ramp up customer deliveries during the festive period, according to data shared by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA).
The total sales at the retail level last year was 1418,726 units. “With most of the month under festive period, the sentiment was extremely positive across all categories of dealership outlets. Festive 2022 brings cheers to the auto industry as for the first time customers of every category came out in good numbers and took part in festive purchases, making it the best in the last four years,” FADA President Manish Raj Singhania said.
FADA found that the passenger vehicle (PV) segment recorded a 41 percent increase in sales in, at 328,645 units last month as against 233,822 units in September 2021. Two-wheeler sales were also up by 51.10 percent at 171,165 during October 2022 vis-à-vis 1039,845 units sold a year back.
Two-wheelers vroomed with 51 percent on-year growth and, for the first time, 6 percent compared over October 2019, the year before Covid broke out.
"With both Navratri and Deepawali majorly falling in a single month, October saw double footfalls at dealerships. Dealers say that sentiment has also started improving at the rural level but it needs to sustain for at least next 3-4 months. Apart from this, new products and good customer schemes also played a pivotal role in helping revival in demand," Singhania said.
FADA reckoned that when compared with pre-Covid month of 2019, overall retails for the first time closed with an 8 percent growth. Except for three-wheelers, which saw a marginal dip of -0.6 percent, all other categories such as two-wheelers, PVs, tractors and commercial vehicles (CV) grew 6 percent, 18 percent, 47 percent and 13 percent, respectively, between October 2019 and October 2022.
Three-wheelers recorded a mammoth growth of 66 percent over October 2021, thanks to a shift towards electrically powered vehicles, though some permit issues hit the sales in some pockets.
In the passenger vehicle category, exceptional demand in the Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) and Compact SUV segments (Brezza, Venue) drove the 41 percent spurt in sales. PVs also saw the best festive period in a decade by surpassing the 2020 festival sales by 2 percent. The CV segment is back on track with a 25 percent on-year growth and 13 percent growth over 2019, FADA said.
The immediate next month generally witnesses a certain amount of softness in sales as the festivities end. While farmers will start receiving their crop realisations, the overall sentiment continues to show some headwinds, especially in the two-wheeler segment in rural India. For auto retails to show strength, the segment will have to grow for at least 3-4 months over pre-Covid period to come out of the woods, as per FADA.
“Most of the OEMs will now start migrating towards manufacturing OBD-2 norms vehicles. This will definitely see a steep price increase across all categories of vehicles as and when they hit the market. Also with year-end coming close, many customers wait for vehicles manufactured in the new year," Singhania said.
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