India’s passenger car sales in July this year reveal a divergence in the data for manufacturers and retailers, figures revealed by representative associations showed on Friday, August 5.
According to data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers’ Association (FADA), passenger car sales in July this year were recorded at 250,000 units, a decline of five percent year on year.
The FADA data is based on passenger car registrations, which actually denote the number of units sold from all retail outlets.
However, data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) representing passenger car manufacturers reported July sales at 340,000 units, a rise of 16 percent year on year.
The SIAM data is based on the number of units dispatched from the plants of automobile manufacturers to dealers.
A section of the industry pointed out persistent claims that passenger carmakers often push higher volumes of dispatches from their plants to dealers to show growth in sales and keep their own inventories on the lower side. But the sales of dealers, which represent actual buying by consumers, remain low, indicating an inventory pile-up at the retail end of the chain.