Record retail sales during festivals bring down inventory in car market

The festive season brought much relief to automakers who had been struggling with high inventory, with consumers lapping up cars and SUVs across categories.

While sales of entry-level cars are yet to show signs of a turnaround, customers drove home premium vehicles — from hatchbacks like the Maruti Suzuki Baleno to SUVs such as the Hyundai Creta, Maruti Suzuki Brezza, Mahindra Thar Roxx and the all-electric JSW MG Windsor - boosting retail sales.

Most major manufacturers from Maruti Suzuki to Tata Motors posted record retail sales last month, which helped bring down stocks in the network. Wholesale dispatches from factories to dealerships, however, remained largely flat on a high base of about 390,000 units in October 2023, industry insiders said. Official data from industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers will be available only later this month.

Industry executives expect the momentum to continue due to the wedding season in November.

“We had our best ever retail sales this October. Our retail sales last month went up by 22.4%, which helped bring down stocks by about 40,000,” said Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki, the leader in the car market. “We have been calibrating wholesale dispatches for the last couple of months so as to maintain a healthy level of stocks in the network. But overall, both for us and in the industry, last month was good,” Banerjee told ET.

At Korean rival Hyundai Motor, wholesale dispatches grew marginally by 0.8% to 55,568 units. Chief operating officer Tarun Garg said: “We witnessed strong demand for our SUV portfolio during festive period, leading to our highest-ever monthly SUV sales at 37,902 units, including highest ever monthly domestic sales of the Hyundai Creta at 17,497 units.”

SUVs accounted for 68.2% of the company’s total sales in October, Garg said.

Homegrown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra too reported record SUV sales in October, growing 25% to 54,504 units. Mahindra came in third in total sales last month, overtaking Tata Motors that sold 48,131 units.

At Toyota Kirloskar Motor, domestic sales grew 37% to 28,138 units. JSW MG Motor posted a 31% increase in sales to 7,045, including 3,116 units of the MG Windsor EV.

Demand remained healthy in the two-wheeler segment. At market leader Hero MotoCorp, sales grew 17.4% to 657,403 units in October, led by demand for 100cc and 125cc two-wheelers in both rural and urban markets, the company said. TVS Motors Co sales volume grew 13% to 390,489 units, while Royal Enfield sold a record 101,886 units, up 26%.

In the commercial vehicle segment, though, sales remained muted with market leader Tata Motors posting a marginal growth of 1% in sales at 32,708 units.

In the farm equipment sector, demand remained healthy with market leader Mahindra selling 64,326 tractors in October, up 30% on year. Hemant Sikka, president of the farm equipment sector at Mahindra, said: “The tractor industry has seen very robust growth on the back of many positive factors coming together, notable being a very good monsoon, a good kharif crop, high reservoir levels which will help in rabi crops, and the government's announcement of higher MSP on key Rabi crops. With the festive season providing momentum to positive sentiments, we expect demand to remain strong in the coming months.”

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