Up or down? Festive cheer or moment of cautious optimism? Depends on whose word you take—that is the curious case of the performance of India’s auto industry right now.
On Wednesday morning, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the official association of automakers in the country, released the sales figures for cars, bikes and commercial vehicles for last month. Compared to the same month last year, sales of two-wheelers were up 16 per cent, passenger vehicles by 14 per cent, while three-wheelers were down by 60 per cent.
The problem? It goes rather contrary to the figures issued by another industry body, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA). According to its figures released on Monday, two-wheeler sales were down 27 per cent, passenger vehicles by 9 per cent, (including SUVs and vans), commercial vehicles by 30 per cent and three-wheelers by 65 per cent in October 2020, compared to October 2019.
“The negative slide continues to increase,” said FADA president Vinkesh Gulati, “The 9-day Navratri period witnessed robust vehicle registrations but could not save (the month) to go in red as compared to last year.” Essentially, dealers are emphatic—sales may be picking up compared to the previous months since Unlock started, but are nowhere compared to figures for the same month last year (year-on-year), which itself was a period of slowdown.
But according to SIAM director general Rajesh Menon, sales saw ‘continuity in growth trajectory’. As he pointed out, “There were marked improvements witnessed across certain segments due to good festive demand.”
The discrepancy possibly arises from the way these industry organisations calculate the number of vehicles. While SIAM looks at the number of vehicles manufactured from auto plants as well as ‘shipped’ from the companies wholesale, FADA says it looks at sales of vehicles happening at the dealer’s end. And at that end, it is ‘lean demand’ and proves a ‘spoilsport.’
The only area where there is super sales according to FADA? The rural segment, where tractor sales grew at 55 per cent year-on-year. Experts attribute this to the bumper crops this season and the higher MSP given by the government for kharif crops.
