Passenger vehicle sales in the country reached a new record high of 4.22 million in the year ended March 2024, up 8.4% from FY23, powered by better supplies and sustained consumer demand. As per data available with the industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), two-wheeler sales recovered last fiscal, growing by over 13% year-on-year to 17.9 million units, though it remained well shy of the peak of 21 million units reported in FY19.
Sales of commercial vehicles remained flat at 967,000 units in FY24.“On the backdrop of a robust economic growth of 7.6% based on conducive policies of the Government of India, the Indian automobile industry has posted a satisfactory performance with the domestic industry growing by 12.5% during the last financial year,” said Vinod Aggarwal, president of SIAM.
“Passenger vehicle segment led the growth with overall sales touching almost 5 million units including 4.2 million domestic and 0.7 million exports,” he said. In March, the last month of the financial year, the cumulative sales of cars, sedans and utility vehicles stood at 368,086 units, up from 336,000 a year earlier.
Sales of commercial vehicles in the local market increased by a modest 0.6% to 967,878 units in FY24.
There was a decline in demand for light and small commercial vehicles, especially those which run on CNG, Aggarwal said. “The growth in commercial vehicles was also impacted due to migration to higher tonnage trucks, which created higher payload capacity, (and) that is not reflected in the number of units,” he added.
Sales of three-wheelers were almost close to the earlier peak of 0.7 million units reported in FY 19.Overall, exports remained under stress during the last financial year with a significant decline in shipments of commercial vehicles, two-wheelers and three-wheelers. Passenger vehicle exports grew marginally during the year.The industry saw a good recovery in the last quarter, especially for two-wheelers, indicating better potential for FY25.Last fiscal, automakers commenced producing vehicles compliant with the 20% ethanol blend.Demand increased for electric vehicles, too. While sales of electric passenger vehicles went up by 90% on year in FY24, those of electric two-wheelers rose 30%.
Rajesh Menon, director-general of SIAM, said two-wheeler sales shot up by 25% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of FY24 at 4.5 million units while passenger vehicles grew 12% at more than 1.1 million units.
Three-wheelers posted sales of about 165,000 units with a growth of 7% during the quarter while commercial vehicle sales fell 4% to over 268,000 units, Menon said.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/epaper/delhicapital/2024/apr/13/satet-news/new-cars-hit-indian-roads-in-record-numbers-last-yr/articleshow/109256877.cms