According to data, all automobile categories increased in November. 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, passenger vehicles (PVs), tractors and commercial vehicles (CVs) each saw a growth of 24%, 80%, 21%, 57% and 33% respectively.
Auto retail in November 2022 set a new high, with a 26% year-on-year increase, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) on Friday.
Around 23.80 lakh units were sold in November this year, compared to 18.93 lakh units in November 2021 and 23.44 lakh units in November 2019, a pre-Covid year.
“November 2022 has clocked the highest retails in the history of the Indian automobile industry with March 2020 as an exception when retails were higher due to BS-4 to BS-6 transition,” said Manish Raj Singhania, President, FADA.
Source: FADA
“The baton was passed by the positive run of festive sales to the Great Indian Wedding Season (from November 14 to December 14) where around 32 lakh weddings will be solemnised across the country,” Singhania added.
Compared to the pre-Covid period of November 2019, overall retails across all categories, except 2-wheelers, saw a positive bump for the second straight month.
“The 2W segment showed a huge growth of 24% YoY but fell marginally by 0.9%, when compared to November 2019, a pre-covid year. This segment is slowly turning the tides from negative to positive as the same can be witnessed from retail sales due to the ongoing wedding season,” Singhania said.
On business outlook, FADA stated: "Most of the OEMs are announcing price hikes going forward. To counter this and for the lower end of the pyramid, OEMs have started announcing discounts for slow moving products, lower variants and to clear their year-end stocks. This may help year-end sales to remain healthy."
The industry body, which represents over 15,000 automobile dealers across the country, noted that the increase in repo-rate will further lead to a higher cost of borrowing and may impact the sales in the two wheeler and entry level passenger vehicle segment.
"Along with this, the China lockdown may play its part in slowing the supply of semiconductors. If this happens, it may act as a speed-breaker and add to supply-demand mis-match which has been improving since the last few months. Due to the above reasons, FADA remains cautiously optimistic in the near-term," it added.
With inputs from Agencies.
