Local Indian local cold rolled coil (CRC) prices have remained stable during the past week at INR 39,400/mt ($548/mt) ex-works, but buying interest is still minimal amid worsening sentiments from more distressing reports from automobile and consumer durable manufacturers, traders said on Monday, September 2.
Market sentiments and trading conditions have worsened and buyers - both market intermediaries and actual users - have stayed away from concluding any significant booking volumes in the wake of domestic automobile manufacturers continuing to report a sharp fall in August sales.
India’s largest automobile manufacturer by market share, Maruti Suzuki, has reported a 33 percent fall in sales for August this year compared to the corresponding month of the previous year. Tata Motors reported a 58 percent fall in sales of its passenger vehicles, while Honda Cars Limited reported a 51 percent drop in sales in August this year, year on year. Toyota Kirlosakar Limited posted a 21 percent year-on-year fall in sales for the given month.
Overall sales of automobiles in August of all Indian manufacturers were down 34 percent year on year.
“Neither the automobile nor any consumer durable manufacturing sectors are showing any signs of revival. On the contrary, the distress in these major CRC consuming sectors is only deepening and the depression in the market will only be extended. Under these circumstances, no buyer is willing to increase raw material inventories and in fact their levels of off-take will steadily keep falling as they close down more and more production lines,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“The point that is being closely watched is whether domestic steel mills which are not too successful in pushing CRC exports unlike HRC will lower base prices when they announce their September pricing strategy over the next few days,” the trader added.
$1 = INR 71.88