Chennai: Retail sales of passenger vehicles (PV) in May declined by one per cent, to 2,51,049 units when compared to the same period last year where PV sales stood at 2,53,463 units, said a report.
According to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) in its ‘Monthly Vehicle Registration Data’ (for the Month of May), two-wheeler sales declined by 8.6 per cent to 14,07,361 units last month as compared with 15,40,377 units in the year-ago period.
Commercial vehicle sales dropped by 7.8 per cent to 62,551 units against 67,847 units in May last year.
Three-wheeler sales saw a dip of four per cent to 50,959 units last month from 53,108 units in the same period last year. Total sales across categories declined by 7.5 per cent to 17,71,920 units in May as against 19,14,795 units in the same month last year.
FADA president, Ashish Harsharaj Kale, said, ‘Even though on a m-o-m basis, there was an uptick in vehicle registrations, all categories of vehicles de-grew when compared on y-o-y basis. It should also be noted that May last year had a very high base and had witnessed second highest registrations on a monthly basis in the last fiscal.’
In the report, the entity also sharing State-wise registration numbers for the month. It stated that, overall the States with highest vehicle registrations were Uttar Pradesh (2,81,175), Maharashtra (1,99,509) and Tamilnadu (1,58,433)
In PV category, the States with highest registrations were Uttar Pradesh (34,249), Maharashtra (31,871) and Gujarat (21,929), while in two-wheeler sales, the States with highest registrations were Uttar Pradesh (2,36,713), Maharashtra (1,51,265) and Tamilnadu (1,31,092).
Tamilnadu was second best in the CV category with 6,676 units sold and in total vehicle registrations, Arunachal Pradesh registered highest y-o-y growth of 31 per cent. West Bengal registered a degrowth of 27 per cent.
According to FADA, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. (HMSI) was the first OEM to have reduced their dealer inventory to an average of 30 days by having taken unprecedented wholesale billing reduction in the last 90 days and moving towards the FADA recommended norm of 21 days.
Similarly in the PV segment, Tata Motors officially announced its move towards the 21 days norm of dealer inventory by September along with a shift in dealer market share calculation by retail sales, it said.
On near term outlook, the report said, ‘The current situation continues to be worrisome and consumer sentiment continues to be negative. With liquidity still an issue and the new government getting settled and in the process of planning and rolling out new initiatives coupled with delay in monsoon by 10-12 days, we expect the near term outlook of the next four to six weeks to be similar to last month with overall auto retails continuing to be under strain across all verticals.’