Car sales back on track in January; CV, two-wheelers still struggle: SIAM

After the biggest fall in December since April 2015, car sales shake of demonetisation blues to post 11% growth in sales.

Cars on a highway. Photo: Reuters

Car sales in January 2017 saw a great improvement from the previous month as it grew by 10.83%. Domestic passenger car sales in the country which was shaken due to the impact of demonetisation in November and December 2016 recovered to 1,86,523 units in January 2017 from 1,68,303 units sold in January last year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Total domestic passenger vehicle sales too grew by 14.40% during the month, as 2,65,320 units were sold in January this year as against 2,31,917 units sold during January 2016. This was aided by a large jump in sales of utility vehicles and vans which grew by 24.27% and 21.65% in January, respectively.

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Car sales in December saw its biggest fall since April 2014 and had declined by 8.14% to 1,58,617 units from 1,72,671 units in the same month a year ago.

However, commercial vehicles continued to struggle as Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles (MHCV) sales posted just a 0.61% growth in January. This is due to a decline of 1.23% in sales of passenger carriers and 0.83% growth of goods carriers. Even Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) sales posted a decline of 1.83%.

Total domestic commercial vehicle sales was down 0.72% during the month.

Even two-wheeler sales will take some time to recover from the impact of demonetisation as it posted a large 7.39% decline in growth during the month. While mopeds saw the largest decline of 28.83% in January, scooter sales too saw a 14.5% decline in sales. Motorcycle sales seem to be improving despite the decline. It posted a 6.07% decline in sales during the month.

Three-wheeler sales declined by a large 28.21% during January 2017.

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