After a depressing start to this financial year owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian auto industry finally seems to have a reason to rejoice. The festive season has ensured that a majority of automobiles have registered a growth in sales in October both when compared to October 2019 and September 2020. In fact, some two-wheeler and four-wheeler makers have had their best month ever in terms of sales and with Diwali fast approaching, the month of November too looks quite promising. Here’s how some of the biggies fared.
FOUR-WHEELERS
The country’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, posted total sales of 1,82,448 units in October 2020. This is a growth of 18.9% over the same period of previous year. Total sales included domestic sales of 1,66,825 units and 6,037 units for other manufactures. In addition, the Company exported 9,586 units in October 2020 which is a healthy number. Hyundai, which has occupied the second spot in the country when it comes to sales for a long time, recorded its highest ever domestic sales of 56,605 units and exports of 12,230 units with cumulative sales of 68,835 cars for the month of October 2020. Their previous highest monthly domestic sales number was achieved in the month of October 2018 with 52,001 units.
Hyundai’s rival and cousin, Kia motors, a relatively new entrant to the Indian market too registered its highest-ever domestic sales with 21,021 units sold in October. In the process, the Korean carmaker also crossed the milestone of selling 1.5 lakh in India in just over a year. Its highest selling car was the Sonet, which found 11,721 takers last month. Tata Motors fared a little better than Kia and was third overall when it came to October sales. The Homegrown carmaker was able to sell a total of 52,132 vehicles in domestic & international markets, compared to 41,354 units sold during October 2019. In India the company sold 23,617 cars, up from 21,199 units sold in the same period last year.
Mahindra & Mahindra was able to sell 18,600 cars in the month of October which is 27 % more than 14,663 cars it sold in September and 4 % more than 17,923 cars sold in October last year. Next was Toyota which sold a total of 12,373 units in October, thereby clocking a growth of 52% when compared to September 2020 when the company had sold 8,116 units. In October 2019, the company had sold a total of 11,866 units in the domestic market. Honda registered monthly domestic sales of 10,836 units in October 2020 against 10,010 units in corresponding month last year, registering a growth of 8.3 %. Renault was one of the few carmakers which sold fewer cars than last year. It sold 11,005 cars in October against 11,516 cars sold in October 2019, a fall of 4 %. However when compared to September 2020, it registered a healthy growth of 25% when the company sold 8,805 cars.
MG Motor, on the back of its recent launch Gloster, also had an impressive showing in October. The carmaker recorded overall retail sales of 3,750 units during the month, registering a growth of 48 % versus September this year when it sold 2,537 units. In October 2019, it had retailed 3,536 units, which means a growth of 6 %.
TWO-WHEELERS
Records were broken in the 2-wheeler space too as people continued to follow social distancing amid the pandemic. Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, sold 8,06,848 units of motorcycles and scooters in October 2020, its highest-ever sales in any single month. This meant a big double-digit growth of 35% over October 2019, when the company had sold 5,99,248 units. Hero’s rival Honda, after breaching the 5 lakh unit sales level in September, recorded sales of 527,180 units in October. This was 2% than over 517,845 the company sold in October 2019.
TVS Motor company reported that its two-wheelers sales grew by 24% recording 3,82,121 units in October 2020 as against 3,08,161 units in October 2019. Domestic two-wheeler sales posted a growth of 19% registering 3,01,380 units in October 2020 as against 252,684 units last year. Finally, a cult bike maker reported a slight slump in sales. Royal Enfield posted a sale of 66,891 motorcycles in the month of October 2020, against the sales of 71,964 motorcycles for the same month last year. Of these 62,858 were sold in the domestic market which was 7% lesser than October 2019.