Vehicle retail up 10.94%; PV sales grew 9.71% on-year in Sept: FADA

The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) said that vehicle sales saw a healthy growth of 11 per cent in the month of September. Passenger vehicle sales grew a significant 9.71 per cent over the previous year. Except for tractors that dipped 1.5 per cent, all other categories including two-wheelers, three-wheelers, passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles grew 9.02 per cent, 71.94 per cent, 9.71 per cent, and 18.87 per cent respectively. 

FADA President Manish Raj Singhania said, “Auto Retail for the month of September’22 saw an overall growth of 11%. September witnessed both the inauspicious period of Shradh (a.k.a Pitru Paksha) from 10-25th September and festive period which began with Navratri on 26th September. Due to this, the full potential for the month was not realised as it should have been.”

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India was the leader in the two-wheeler segment with a market share of 27.98 per cent, followed by Hero Motocorp with a market share of 24.64 per cent. Bajaj Auto topped the list of three-wheeler players with a market share of 30.47 per cent, with Piaggio Vehicles a distant second with 8 per cent market share. 

When it comes to commercial vehicles, Tata Motors was on the top spot with market share of 40.17 per cent, followed by Mahindra and Mahindra with 24.54 per cent. Maruti Suzuki remained the top player in passenger vehicles with 39.88 per cent market share, followed by Hyundai and Tata Motors with 15.01 per cent and 13.98 per cent market share respectively. 

Singhania said that when compared to September 2019 – a pre-COVID month – vehicle retail fell by 4 per cent, with PV segment seeing a growth of 44 per cent, and three-wheelers, tractor and CV sales also closing in green with an increase of 6 per cent , 37 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. The two-wheeler segment, however, fell by as much as 14 per cent. 

“Due to increased input costs, 2W companies raised prices by 5 times in past one year. Apart from this, RBIs fight with inflation saw rate hikes which continued to make vehicle loans expensive. While India is showing revival signs, Bharat is yet to perform. 2W especially entry level vehicles are finding extremely less buyers thus dragging the entire segment. The 3W segment continues to see structural shift from ICE to EV. This is also reflected in the extremely healthy growth rate of e-rickshaws,” said Singhania.  

In September, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhan, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand showed weakness with lower contribution to auto retail especially in entry level two-wheelers and passenger vehicles category, said FADA. 

FADA expects October to see high auto retail numbers due to 24 days of festive season out of the 31 days. “Dealers anticipate this to be the best festive in a decade for PV segment as we anticipate even higher sales during the month. While semi-conductor supply continues to ease, FADA requests OEMs to match supply as per the demand so that PV sales can further receive a nitro-boost,” it said. If two-wheeler segments performs well, overall auto retail will see a higher growth than compared to the previous two festivals. 

“Overall, FADA continues to remain optimistic for the month of October due to the ongoing festive season,” it said. 

Also read: Maruti Suzuki sold 1.48 lakh vehicles in September; Hyundai near 50,000 and Mahindra close to 35,000