Passenger car sales rise 1.9% in June; hint steady demand for new models

Factory-gate dispatches of passenger vehicles rose 1.9% from a year earlier in June to 327,700 units hinting at steady demand for new models.

- Alisha Sachdev

While growth in June moderated due to a high base of last year, the passenger vehicle industry saw its best dispatches ever in the first half of the year, surpassing the 2 million mark, up 10% from the January-June period of 2022.

Automakers expect growth to continue at a moderate pace on the back of demand for new models, and a revival in the rural economy even as vehicle production improves gradually amid an easing in the supply crunch of semiconductor chips from the second quarter, Shashank Srivastava, executive director, Maruti Suzuki, said, adding, however, that a "tightness" in chip supplies remains.