In India, automobile sales across categories declined 19.08% in February as the economic downturn continued to hit demand, as well as lower production in view of the transition to BS-VI emission standards affecting wholesale dispatches, SIAM said on Friday.
Last month, vehicle sales across categories were 16,46,331 units, compared to 20,34,597 units in Feb last year. According to data.
“The decline in wholesale dispatches is primarily due to economic slowdown and lower production of BS-IV vehicles. Some upside on the registration numbers of VAHAN can be attributed to last-minute purchase by customers trying to advance purchase of BS-IV vehicles. Supply chain disruptions from China is also a concern, which may impact the production plans for companies going forward.” – SIAM President Rajan Wadhera said in a statement.
According to SIAM, in February domestic passenger vehicle sales declined from 2,72,243 units in the year-ago month by 7.6% to 2,51,516 units. Last month’s car sales also dropped 8.77% at 1,56,285 units compared to 1,71,307 units last year in February.
Declining Automobile Sales Across Sectors in India:
Market leader Maruti Suzuki India sales of passenger vehicles declined at 1,33,702 units last month by 2.34%.
Total 2-wheeler sales in the month of February fell by 19.82% to 12,94,791 units as compared to 16,14,941 units in the same month last year. Hero MotoCorp reported total two-wheeler sales of 4,80,196 units last month which is down 20.05%. Honda motorcycle and scooter India also witnessed halt in its production by 22.83% at 3,15,285 units last month.
Chennai based TVS Motors Co. also saw a drop of 26.73% at 1,69,684 units last month added by SIAM. The 2-wheeler sales overall declined by 22.02% last month at 8,16,679 units as against 10,47,356 units in the year-ago period. Scoters were not rolling out either. They were down 14.27% at 4,22,310 units last month as compared to 4,92,584 units in February last year.
Summing Up:
2020 was not a very good year overall for the automobile sector. Disturbances in the automobile economy began in the last 2019 and continue to linger around.
Things went pretty worse after coronavirus outspread. This affected the supply chain, the backbone of the automobile industry. Let’s not forget consumer habits as well.
All this leads to a single direction, which is, there are bad times for the automobile sector and the times don’t seems to be changing anytime soon. While all other sectors witness a jerk, I guess it’s the automobile sector that faced a downfall for a long time.
We hope to see this industry getting better, but till the time there is the fear of coronavirus outspread, the sector will continue its growth in the downward direction.
