Passenger car sales up eight percent in 2015-16: SIAM

Passenger car sales expanded by 7.87 percent to 2,025,479 units in the financial year 2015-16, data by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed on Friday.

According to the data, the total passenger vehicle sales, which include cars, utility vehicles and vans, registered a growth of 7.24 percent to 2,789,678 units.

Further, sales of utility vehicles rose by 6.25 percent to 586,664 units, while the off-take of vans grew by 3.58 percent to 177,535 units.

The industry data for the last financial year showed a growth of 11.51 percent in the overall commercial vehicles segment sales - a key indicator of economic activity - which now stood at 685,704 units in 2015-16 from 614,948 units in 2014-15.

In addition, sales of three-wheelers showed a marginal growth of 1.03 percent in the year.

Sales in the overall two-wheelers segment, which includes off-take for scooters, motorcycles and mopeds, grew by 3.01 percent to 16,455,911 units in 2015-16 from 15,975,561 units sold in 2014-15.

"This year was good as well challenging for the Indian automotive industry. All segments grew, heavy commercial vehicles did extremely well, passenger cars grew mainly due to fantastic launches in the compact segment at very attractive price points," said Price Waterhouse partner and auto export Abdul Majeed.

"Growth for next fiscal year looks good with the lowering of interest rates, good monsoon, better liquidity, increased investment in rural economy as well as infrastructure and overall better off take in Indian economy," he added.

Besides, overall automobile exports grew by 1.91 percent in 2015-16.

The industry data for the month of March 2016 showed that passenger vehicles segment (passenger cars, utility vehicles and vans) showed a rise of 5.13 percent, despite a slight fall in the passenger cars sales.

The data showed that sale of total passenger vehicles augmented to 256,942 units last month as compared to 244,395 units in the corresponding month last year.

However, passenger car sales in the domestic market inched down by 0.30 percent, falling by 175,730 units in March as compared to 176,260 units in the like month of 2015.

"Some of the challenges such as uncertainty relating to diesel vehicles in NCR (national capital region), infrastructure cess and distress in rural economy has impacted the growth and will continue to impact it in future," Majeed added.

The total demand for commercial vehicles surged by 22.03 percent to 79,865 units during the month under review.

The sales figure of three-wheelers stood at 51,142 units -- up 20.54 percent, and of two-wheelers stood at 1,467,714 units -- up 10.92 percent.

In addition, overall exports across categories, too, grew by 6.53 percent during last month, increasing to 268,247 units sold abroad from 251,806 units shipped out during the like month in 2015.