Low interest rate, drop in fuel prices and pent up demand has helped the auto industry register a growth in all segments in November against the same month last year.
Lead by the market leader Maruti Suzuki India, the passenger car segment grew more than 10 per cent to 1.73 lakh units during the month against 1.57 lakh units in November 2014, industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM), said in its monthly report.
“It is the 13th consecutive month of growth for the passenger cars. We posted some growth during November but rural offtake remains pretty low and is pulling us down,” said Vishnu Mathur, Director General, SIAM.
He said the growth came from the recent launches such as Maruti Suzuki Baleno and Renault Kwid. There was also some positive impact of the festival season which extended a bit to November, he added.
“It is a slow recovery process that is happening in the car segment but situation in the rural markets is not very encouraging,” Mathur added. Similarly, in the two-wheelers segment, the festive season helped the industry to achieve more than one per cent to around 13.20 lakh units last month against 13.01 lakh units in corresponding month last year.
In the commercial vehicles segment, the medium and heavy commercial vehicles saw a growth of 25 per cent to 20,145 units in November against 16,148 units in November last year, the SIAM data released on Friday said.
The three-wheelers industry also saw a growth of more than eight per cent in November with 45,235 units against 41,755 units in the corresponding month last year.
According to analysts, the growth for the overall industry is not broad-based, the passenger cars segment is riding on the positive sentiments, while commercial vehicles are growing with potential uptick in the overall economic activity.
“In order to have a sustained growth in the Indian automotive industry, it is necessary to have a robust growth in the overall economy which in turn depends lot more on the next level of reforms including introduction of GST,” said Abdul Majeed, auto expert at Partner Price Waterhouse.