Representative image of passenger vehicles.
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors posted a decline in passenger vehicle (PV) wholesales in the last month, as the car-makers cut their vehicle dispatches to dealers to reduce the inventory levels.
According to dealers body Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), inventory levels with the dealers, in the month of August, was valued at Rs.77,800 crore with stock days stretching to 70-75 days and inventory totalling 7.8 lakh vehicles.
Besides high inventory levels, exhaustion of the pent-up demand which began in 2023 due to chip shortage and supply chain disruptions and low retail offtake by the customers in the last month resulted in the decline of PV sales.
“The PV industry in the second quarter (Q2) of the current financial year (FY) saw more than 5% decline in retail sales (Vahan registrations) compared to Q2 FY24 driven by slow consumer demand and seasonal factors," Shailesh Chandra, managing director, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd.
"In contrast, industry offtake was significantly higher than registrations in anticipation of a strong start to the festive season, resulting in a continued buildup of channel stock," he added.
Tata Motors logged a high decline of 8% YoY in PV sales (including electric vehicles) to 41,063 units in the last month. The company blamed this on lapse of registration and road tax waivers for EVs in some states, and the non-inclusion of the fleet segment in PM-eDRIVE scheme.
Maruti Suzuki, India's largest car-maker, posted a 4% YoY decline in PV sales to 144,962 units as the company has been reducing the inventory at the dealer level.
"We now have 30 days of stock with the dealers compared to 36 days in the last month," said Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer (Marketing & Sales), Maruti Suzuki.
"The company has seen retail sales growth of 5% YoY, bookings 11% YoY in the last two months and we expect the industry to post a single digit growth in FY25," he added.
While Mahindra & Mahindra posted a YoY growth of 24% in the PV segment to 51,062 units, Hyundai Motors sold 51,101 units, registering a decline of 6% YoY.
According to SIAM data, these four companies held a market share of 79% of total PV sales in April-August this year.