Indian passenger car sales of most manufacturers slipped back into the negative zone in August this year, as company to July, SteelOrbis learned from data collated from companies on Thursday, September 2.
Industry analysts said that the fall in sales is largely the result of disruptions in production by the shortage of imported electronic components and lower-volume despatches from plants to dealers. It may be noted that passenger car makers consider despatches from plants to dealers as sales.
According to analysts, the decline in sales in August will have a corresponding negative impact on raw material restocking by automobile manufacturers, particularly steel inputs like cold rolled coils (CRC) and the increase in bookings will be lower than expectations. They said that passenger car companies will not be able to ramp up production as planned to meet higher festival demand in October-November and hence could be expected to lower bookings of steel inputs too, impacting volumes sales of integrated steel mills.
India’s largest passenger car manufacturer in terms of market share, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), reported sales of 130,699 units in August this year, down 19.55 percent from July.
The second-largest passenger car producer Hyundai Motors India Limited (HMIL) reported sales of 59,068 units in August, down 1.96 percent month on month.
Tata Motors reported sales of 54,190 units in August, down 4.25 percent, while Toyota achieved sales of 12,722 units, down 2.54 percent, month on month.
The only outlier to the negative trend was Honda Motors Limited which achieved sales of 11,777 units in August, surging by 84.59 percent from July.