Expect sales of around 20,000 units in this year, says Atul Auto’s Jitendra Adhia

Atul Auto reported weak sales for the month of December. The total sales are down 58 percent on a year-on-year basis, though on a month-on-month basis there was a small improvement. They did around 1600 units in the month of November that has improved to around 1700 units.

Jitendra Adhia, President Finance of Atul Auto said, “We are still optimistic since now positive news has started coming in and things are gradually settling, we expect that may not be 20,000 units, but we will be very close to that. The challenges still continue, passenger application financiers are quite reluctant. They guess that borrowers will not be able to repay the loan on time. Also, there is an impact of a shift from BS-IV to BS-VI, the overall price has gone up so the funding amount has also gone up.”

On pricing, Adhia said, “In the month of December the price hike was at a peak and we don’t have any other alternative but to definitely pass it out to the best possible extent. However, the management is yet to decide on this particular issue. We make take a call some time this month or next month.”