The auto sector continued its downward trajectory in sales in November 2019, with a decline of 44% in the first 5 months of the current financial year compared with last year.
Overall, the auto-sector sold 49,110 units as compared to 87,897 units in the same period of last year. In this period, Toyota’s sales went from 24,119 units to 10,090 units and for Honda, they fell from 20,094 units to 5,885 units.
On a monthly basis, only 8,524 units were sold in Nov. 2019 versus 15,334 units sold in November 2018.
According to the information available, Honda saw the biggest decline in sales, falling more than 86%. The company barely managed to sell 477 units of Civic and City (combined) in November 2019 as compared to 3,353 units in November 2018.
Toyota saw its sales plunge 66% with the automaker selling 1,806 units in November 2019 compared to 5,325 units in the same period of last year.
Interestingly, the newly launched 660CC Suzuki Alto has been selling well since its introduction a few months ago. However, it too saw its sales fall with only 3,213 units sold in November 2019, compared to 4,945 units during the preceding month (October 2019).
Suzuki’s WagonR, which up till this year was showing consistent numbers, saw its sales fall by 91% with only 291 units sold this month as compared to 3,232 units in November last year. Cultus was in the same boat with sales dropping 68.12% with only 729 units sold this month compared to 2,287 units sold during last year.
While there has been a lot of noise by the auto manufacturers about the fall in sales, they haven’t taken any step to reduce their profit or price which should be one of the measures to increase sales. They are constantly asking the government to reduce the duties and interest rates. Since the last few months there is almost a monthly increase in the prices although the interest rates have remained constant and the rupee has appreciated against the dollar