M&M sees short term impact of demonetisation

Automobile major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) expects the impact of demonetisation to be a "short term" one, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

However, the company does not expect a slow down in automobile demand during the first quarter of the next fiscal.

"As it was expected, the immediate short term impact was definitely there for all goods," Pawan Goenka, Managing Director of M&M said in an interview to BTVi.

"Automotives, more than tractors, tend to be discretionary. So it is possible that people postpone their purchases by a month or by 2-3 months. And therefore, we see some short term effect. There is no doubt about."

According to Goenka, the situation was beginning to get back to normal.

"Whether it will be normal by the end of December as hoped by the Prime Minister, I think there is a good possibility, it will happen by the end of December. In that case, we should be back to normal by January-February, let say by March," he said.

Goenka cautioned that sales would be impacted in the third quarter of the current fiscal and January-March quarter might be impacted slightly.

"I don't think that demand will slow down in the next financial year. But Q3 will definite be impacted, while Q4 may be slightly impacted. By Q1 (April-June) next year, we should be back to normal," he said.

--IANS

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