Fiscal Starts On A Low As Car Makers Post De-growth In Sales

The new fiscal (2019-20) started off on a low note as leading auto makers posted de-growth in sales, owing to the ongoing elections, new regulations and unfavorable exchange rates. During April 2019, all car makers barring Honda has witnessed decline in their sales graph.

- Ritwik Sinha

The country’s largest passenger car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) has reported 19 percent decline in its total domestic sales at 133,704 units in April 2019. This is the highest dip faced by the company in monthly sales performance since December 2018.

The company sold 164,978 units in April 2018. Sales of passenger vehicles (PV) in the domestic market went down by 19.6 percent at 131,385 units as against 163,434 units in same month previous year. Within the PV segment, mini and compact cars, which include Alto, old and New Wagon R2, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire, Tour S, saw sharp 22 percent dip at 94,912 units in April 2019.

Sales of utility vehicles (UV) registered a decent growth at 22,035 units last month as compared to 20,804 units in the April 2018. The commercial vehicle segment, however, witnessed a robust growth of 50.2 percent at 2,319 units in April 2019 as against 1,544 units in the year ago month.

During the month, the auto major also sold 364 units of Baleno to Toyota, which the later company has rebadged as Glanza. Maruti Suzuki’s overall exports grew 14.6 percent at 9,177 units in the first month of FY 2019-2020.

Poor domestic performance also dragged total sales (domestic + export) down by 17.2 percent at 143,245 units last month as compared to 172,986 units in April 2018.

The second-largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) has witnessed the domestic sales of 42,005 units and exports of 16,800 units with cumulative sales of 58,805 units for the month of April 2019.