The festive season seems to have brought some cheer to leading auto majors with most companies posting incremental volumes last month.
While sales for the Maruti Suzuki have increased by 15-17 per cent during Onam, Ganesh Chaturthi and Dussehra this year over that reported during these festivals last year, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) and General Motors too have recorded month-on-month growth rates of around 10 percent.
Mayank Pareek, chief operating officer (sales & marketing), MSIL says the initial signs during the festive season have been very good for the company.
“We have recorded 32,000 bookings for the new Alto 800 within two weeks of launch. We are enthused by the response particularly because it is an entry-level petrol car. Excluding Alto, we have seen fresh bookings go up by 18 per cent and have an order backlog of 125,000 units for the Swift, DZire and Ertiga”, Pareek informs.
| COMPANY | SALES |
| Maruti Suzuki | Recorded 15-17 per cent increase in festive sales in Onam, Ganesh Chaturthi and Dussehra over last year |
| New Alto bookings stand at 32,000 units | |
| Has additional bookings of 125,000 units for Swift, DZire and Ertiga | |
| Toyota Kirloskar Motor | The company which posted a decline of 5.40 per cent in sales in September is expecting a growth of 10 per cent in October. Customer enquiries have gone up 15-20 per cent in Dussehra |
| Honda Cars India | Have received good response for new launches Brio AT and City CNG |
| HCI has already sold out the initial lot of 300 units of Brio AT | |
| Expecting strong double digit growth in October. | |
| Hero MotoCorp | Has retailed over 350,000 motorcycles and scooters in 15 days of the festival in October |
| Bajaj Auto Limited | The company has recorded a growth of nine per cent this Dussehra as compared to the festive period last year |
| Has sold 40,000 units of recently launched Discover 125 ST and 12,000 units of Pulsar 200 NS and Pulsar 220 during the month |
The numbers are good considering petrol cars sales had declined by 20 per cent while that of diesel vehicles had increased by 40 per cent between April and September this fiscal.
MSIL expects to perform much better in the coming quarters after the flat growth the company has recorded in the first six months of the financial year. Maruti Suzuki grew by 0.03 per cent to sell 473,218 units between April and September this year despite the low base of last year. Pareek adds, “Overall, the passenger vehicle industry has grown by 6.9 per cent in the first two quarters. We expect the second half to be much better given that all the major festivals and corporate and pre-budget purchases will happen now.”
Market leader in the two-wheeler industry Hero MotoCorp too has good news to share. "We have witnessed a good surge in demand this festive season and are optimistic that this trend would continue further. Customer response to our strong brands like Splendor and Passion as well as to our new launches has been excellent. We have retailed over 350,000 units in the 15 days of the festival so far”, informs Anil Dua, senior vice-president (marketing & sales), Hero MotoCorp.
With two new launches each in their portfolio Honda Cars India (HCI) and motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto Limited (BAL) too are confident of revving up volumes in the coming months. While Honda has already sold out the first production batch of 300 automatic transmission variants of Brio, Bajaj has lapped up sales of 40,000 units of recently launched Discover 125 ST.
“We have grown by nine per cent over Dussehra last year. Overall sales in October this year will be flat because Diwali is going to be in November. But we will gain market share in the third and fourth quarters”, says K Srinivas, president (motorcycle business), BAL. The company had recorded a dip in sales for all three months in the second quarter.
Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president (sales & marketing), HCI says, “We will post robust double-digit growth numbers in October on back of our new launches. Sales are expected to be in line with that recorded in September.” Honda Cars India had grown volumes by nearly 16 per cent to sell 5508 units last month.
Sandeep Singh of TKM, however, presents a contrarian view. “Though enquiries went up by 15-20 per cent conversion has been slow. We had expected much better results but could grow only by around 10 per cent in October over last year. In passenger car segment people can afford to defer purchases. High interest rates are hurting sales.” US based auto major General Motors offers a similar argument.
“Despite the government announcing a spate of reforms, none of the prevailing conditions have changed for the auto industry. In a country where 85 per cent of vehicles are bought on finance, sentiments won’t improve unless interest rates come down. The PV industry is most likely to grow by 2-3 per cent this fiscal”, says P Balendran, vice-president, GM India. The company which has sold around 72,000 units between Jan and Sep this year in hoping that premium hatchback Sail (slated for launch on Friday) would shore up numbers.
