Car sales move up in March; motorcycles, LCVs down

Passenger car sales continued to grow in the domestic market during March, but the overall volumes of all categories of automobiles fell marginally due to lower demand for motorcycles, light commercial vehicles and goods carriers.

Car sales grew by 2.64 per cent to 1.76 lakh units during the month compared with 1.71 lakh units in March last year, according to data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Friday.

However, motorcycle sales declined by 5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to 8.59 lakh units compared with 9.06 lakh units in the corresponding month last year.

“Motorcycle sales were impacted due to moderate demand from rural markets, which saw scant rainfall last year. Even now, the rural markets have been impacted by unseasonal rains,” Vishnu Mathur, Director General, SIAM, told reporters here.

However, scooter sales continued to grow, up 11 per cent last month at 3.95 lakh units against 3.56 lakh units in March 2014.

Commercial vehicle sales, which had also seen hard times a few months ago, kept up the growth momentum at 65,470 units in March, up 2 per cent, compared with 64,101 units in the same month last year.

With the improvement in the infrastructure and mining sectors towards the end of last financial year, sales for medium and heavy commercial vehicles grew by 23 per cent to 28,824 units in March, against 23,433 units in March 2013.

Overall, the automobile industry (all categories) sold 16.75 lakh units during March, down 0.15 per cent, compared with around 16.78 lakh units in March 2014, SIAM said.

However, year-wise, the grand total of all categories recorded a growth of 7 per cent at over 1.97 crore units during 2014-15, compared with over 1.84 crore units in the last financial year.

While passenger car sales grew by 5 per cent (18.76 lakh units against 17.86 lakh units), two-wheeler sales grew by 8 per cent to 1.60 crore units in 2014-15, compared with 1.48 crore units in 2013-14.

“During 2014-15, the general sentiment improved in the car industry. Investment cycles restarted and the worries that people had were greatly diminished,” Mathur said, adding that the industry body hoped for ‘moderate growth’ this year.