New Delhi: Despite the traditional up-tick in sales during the festive season, the slump in the domestic automobile sector continued unabated in October with the overall sectoral off-take plunging 12.76%.
On Monday, data furnished by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), showed that the Indian automobile sector's total sales declined by 12.76% to 2,176,136 units in October, from 2,494,345 units sold during the corresponding month of the previous year.
The data assumes significance as it showed that an expected up-tick in wholesales on the back of the festive season did not materialise.
Other reasons such as low rural demand along with a slowdown in economic activity have been cited for the de-growth.
Nonetheless, after nearly 12 months of de-growth, the passenger vehicles sales turned flattish. The off-take during the month under review inched-up by 0.28% to 285,027 units this October, on a year-on-year basis.
SIAM President, Rajan Wadhera, told reporters that healthy PV retail sales have been reported and that the coming months of Nov-Dec are expected to be better than the corresponding period of last year.
However, passenger cars sales witnessed de-growth of 6.34% to 173,649 units. In Sept, sales were down 33.4%.
But the utility vehicle sales grew by 22.22% to 100,725 units, whereas vans' off-take went down by 35.08% to 10,653 units against that in the same month a year ago.
Wadhera cited the entry of new players and products in the utility vehicle segment as the core reason for the rise in sales.
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