Domestic automobile retail sales in the festive season declined 11 per cent this year because of a dip in the offtake of passenger vehicles and two-wheelers.
The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada) said with retail sales, calculated on the basis of total number of registrations, witnessing a decline specially in two-wheeler and passenger vehicles (PV) segments, a substantially high amount of inventory has become “a matter of great concern”.
According to Fada, total registrations during the 42-day festive period, which fell between October 10 and November 20 this year, stood at 20,49,391 units.
Last year, the period was between September 21 and November 1, and the industry witnessed total registrations of 23,01,986 units, it said.
“This is the first time we released sales data of the festive month. We plan to do this every month and very soon we will be publishing region-wise data too,” said Ashish Harsharaj Kale, president, Fada.
PV registrations in this year’s festive period stood at 2,87,717 units against 3,33,456 units in the corresponding period last year, down 14 per cent.
Two-wheeler registrations also fell 13 per cent to 15,83,276 units against 18,11,703 units in the year-ago period.
“We have not seen such a dull festive season in the past few years, as many negative factors came into play during this season which weakened the consumer sentiment and postponed their purchase decision,” Kale said.
High fuel prices and insurance costs along with liquidity issues faced by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) had affected consumer sentiment.
“Overall, we have seen unusual de-growth (fall in sales) during the combined festive period, both in two-wheelers and PVs. Dealer inventory levels in both these segments have risen substantially as a result of this and is a matter of great concern,” Fada said.
The inventory levels before the festivals began, were at around 60 days and 50 days for two-wheelers and passenger vehicles, respectively.
“The same merely came down to around 50 and 45 days post festivities and still remain higher than normal,” it said.
SLOW DRIVE
Festive season registrations
- Total: 20,49,391 units against 23,01,986 in 2017
- Passenger vehicles: 2,87,717 units against 3,33,456 units a year ago
- Two-wheelers: 15,83,276 units against 18,11,703 units a year ago
