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Poor consumer sentiment hurts sales
Maruti Suzuki sold more than 1.19 lakh passenger vehicles (PVs) in the domestic market in December 2018, an increase of 1% from the over 1.18 lakh units sold in the year-ago month.
The company said while the sales of mini segment cars (Alto and Wagon R) declined by 14% to 27,661 units, those of compact segment cars (Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire) fell 3.8% to 51,334 units. However, the sales of mid size Ciaz grew 89.7% to 4,734 units.
Additionally, sales of utility vehicles rose almost 5% to 20,225 units. Sales of vans, Omni and Eeco, rose 39% to 15,850 units.
Maruti Suzuki also said its exports declined 36.4% to 6,859 units.
Honda Cars India posted a 4% growth in sales last month to 13,139 units in the domestic market. The company exported a total of 315 units during the month. Rajesh Goel, senior vice-president and director, sales and marketing, Honda Cars India Ltd. said, “The market continued to remain challenging in December.”
Year-end offers
However, with lucrative year-end offers on many of our models and strong performance of new models Amaze and CR-V, the company recorded 4% sales growth in December 2018.” Rival Hyundai Motor India posted 4.8% increase in domestic sales to 42,093 units in December 2018. The company’s national sales head Vikas Jain said the company achieved its best-ever domestic sales of 5,50,002 units in 2018 on the back of all new Santro, Grand i10, Elite i20, Verna and Creta. Stating that December was a challenging month for the industry with muted consumer sentiment, Tata Motors said its PV sales in the domestic market recorded a growth of 0.6%, to 14,260 units despite these challenges.
Sluggish period
Mayank Pareek, president, PV business unit, Tata Motors Ltd., said, “In December 2018, we have strived to maintain our growth trajectory during what was a rather sluggish period for the entire auto industry.” On the other hand, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) said sales of PVs in the domestic market declined 3% to 15,091 units. Rajan Wadhera, president, automotive sector, M&M Ltd., said, “…in the domestic market, challenges relating to tight liquidity and low buying sentiment continue the de-growth for December.” M&M’s farm equipment sector reported a 6% decline in tractor sales to 17,404 units compared with 18,488 units sold in the same month of the previous year due to a sudden drop in exports and below-than-expected rabi crop sowing during the month. In the two-wheeler segment, Royal Enfield posted a decline of 14% in domestic sales to 56,026 units.
