The July automobile retail sales across all categories grew 28 per cent on a monthly basis to 15,56,777 units against 12,17,151 units in June.
“Auto retails have now started narrowing the deficit when compared to pre-Covid months. With tractor retails already above pre-Covid levels during the last month, passenger vehicles for the first time have reached the same,” Vinkesh Gulati, President, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), said.
In the passenger vehicle (PV) segment, retail sales stood at 2,61,744 units during July, a growth of 42 per cent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis against 1,84,134 units in June, the latest data shared by FADA said on Monday.
In the two-wheeler (2W) segment, the number of registrations rose to 11,32,611 units in July, a growth of 22 per cent compared to 9,30,324 units in the previous month. Three-wheeler (3W) sales grew 89 per cent MoM to 27,904 units compared with 14,732 units in June.
Tractor sales grew 58 per cent at 82,388 units compared to 52,261 units in June.
The commercial vehicle (CV) segment also recorded a growth of 46 per cent MoM to 52,130 units compared with 35,700 units in June.
![BL10Autosalesjpg BL10Autosalesjpg](/theme/images/bl-online/1x1_spacer.png)
High demand
With the entire country now open, July saw robust recovery in auto retails as demand across all categories remained high. The low base effect also continued to play its part, he said.
With all categories in green, CVs continued to see increase in demand specially in medium and heavy commercial vehicles segment with the government rolling out infrastructure projects in many parts of the country, Gulati said.
“PVs witnesses high demand specially with buzz around new launches and compact SUV segments. The waiting period due to supply side constraints has been persisting for quite a few months and is now becoming a deep routed issue for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs),” he said.
On the other hand, the global semi-conductor shortage is now becoming a deep routed problem for the PV segment which is now above the pre-pandemic mark. FADA has been raising red-flag on demand-supply mis-match, he said.
On the near-term outlook, Gulati said the month of August began on a positive note as demand and enquiry levels continued to improve across all categories. With IMD forecasting a normal monsoon during August- September period, sowing operations will pick up gradually. This will have a rub off effect on rural sales, especially in the tractor segment.
But if the Delta variant of Covid goes out of proportion, it can be another deterrent and put brakes on auto retail’s recovery with India entering the festival months, he added.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.