The festive season and new launches boosted passenger vehicle (PV) sales last month, with car majors in India posting higher sales than last year.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited, which makes cars and light commercial vehicles, reported an over two-fold increase in September sales and sold 176,306 vehicles last month, an increase from 86,380 in September 2021.
Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing at Maruti Suzuki India, told CNBC-TV18 that the company expects to see a 24 percent growth in the PV industry for FY23 as compared to last financial year numbers.
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“Estimates are above 3.8 million against 3.07 million that we saw last year. So that is pretty strong growth. In fact, if you see H1, the figure for the industry is a record 1.937 million, which was 1.387 million last year, that's a growth of about 40 percent in H1. Clearly, of course, H1 of last year was a little bit affected because quarter one was affected by COVID. But overall, I think 3.8 million is the expectation now for the whole fiscal year against 3.07 million,” said Srivastava.
He also added that retail sales for the month of September were slower than the wholesale sales, due to a build-up in stock ahead of the festive season.
Maruti Suzuki currently has a pending order book of around 412,000 and that is one of the reasons why with the increased production, the car maker has not really felt the difference or the change in the market condition, Srivastava added.
43% of September sales are from SUVs
Srivastava further added that the company is faring well when it comes to SUV sales. “I think the trend for greater consumer proclivity to buy SUVs continues. In the month of September we saw almost 43 percent of the market being SUV and that obviously was held by the new Brezza as well as the Grand Vitara.” he said.
Meanwhile, sales of mini cars, including Alto and S-Presso, rose to 29,574 units compared to 14,936 in the same month last year.
Similarly, sales in the compact segment, including models like the Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire, increased to 72,176 units from 20,891 cars in September 2021. Sales of mid-sized sedan Ciaz rose to 1,359 units compared to 981 units in September 2021.
Utility vehicle sales, including Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and Ertiga, rose to 32,574 units against 18,459 vehicles in the corresponding period a year ago.
