Re-opening of dealerships across the country, pent-up demand and low base saw retail auto sales showing improvement across categories in July, registering an overall growth of 34.12% year-on-year. The positive feature was that in the case of passenger vehicles, July sales were 24.27% higher than the same month in 2019, which was a pre-Covid year, data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada) on Monday showed.
Though, on an overall basis, sales were still 13.22% lower than that registered during the same month in 2019, the deficit has narrowed, so it can be said that sales are picking up. June sales, for instance, were 28.32% lower compared to June 2019 numbers.
The demand and enquiry levels continue to improve across all categories, so the outlook for the August-September period is positive.
However, global semi-conductor shortage continues to be a problem for the PV segment, which may create supply side problems.
The commercial vehicle segment has started seeing an increase in demand, especially for medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCV). Demand continues to be positive in the two-wheeler segment also but the rate of recovery here remains sluggish as customers at the bottom of the pyramid have suffered loss of income during the second wave of the pandemic.
