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HomeEconomyAutomakers see marginal growth in September sales — but year-on-year fall continues

Automakers see marginal growth in September sales — but year-on-year fall continues

Maruti, Mahindra and Bajaj Auto report a slight increase in September sales as compared to August. All eyes are now on the festive season.

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New Delhi: Amid an ongoing slump in the Indian economy, automobile sales for September indicate a marginal revival for car makers even as the figures continue to contract on a year-on-year basis.

In September, Maruti Suzuki reported a 15 per cent jump in sales to 1.2 lakh units from 1.06 lakh in August. However, on a year-on-year basis, the company saw a 24 per cent fall.

Maruti Suzuki, which is the market leader in the passenger vehicle segment, also saw its seventh straight month of contraction in passenger vehicle sales with sales falling 27 per cent to 1.1 lakh units last month. Compared to August, however, the sales grew by 19 per cent.

Mahindra and Mahindra sales contracted 21 per cent to 43,343 units in September, but were up 20 per cent sequentially.

In a statement, the company said it expects sales to pick up in the festive season and pointed out that a good monsoon and the recent government announcements should help in reviving the industry.

Automakers are hopeful that sales will pick up in the ongoing festive season unlike last year when the figures were much lower than expected. Dealers were unable to clear their previous year’s stocks even in February despite sharp discounts.

Bajaj Auto’s total sales were also down 20 per cent to 4.02 lakh units in September compared to 5.02 lakh units in the year-ago period. However, the sales were 3 per cent up from the 3.9 lakh units sold in August.

Continued slump

A fall in consumer demand led by a rural slowdown as well as tight financing conditions has adversely affected car sales across manufacturers. This has led to massive job losses as companies cut back production due to rising stock levels and lukewarm demand.

The job losses have been across automakers, component makers, dealerships and transports. The pain has been felt by all manufacturers and affected all auto hubs, including Manesar, Pune and Chennai.

Last month, Maruti Suzuki executive director Shashank Srivastava had blamed financing, slowdown in the economy and rising prices of the vehicles due to regulatory requirements of emission and safety for the massive fall in car sales. He had added that increase in insurance costs, registration taxes and road taxes and confusion over BS-IV and BS-VI norms are not helping either.


Also read: Truck drivers to contract engineers, lakhs are jobless in Gurgaon-Manesar auto hub


 

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1 COMMENT

  1. When this phot os parked unsold cars goes viral along with the news the PM is worried about Onion priced, the last nail on the coffin is hit. See you all in the 2020 summer.

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