The government’s decision to withdraw excise duty concessions seems to have triggered a rush among car buyers in December.
Coupled with factors like better offerings and dealer network, the December car sales soared across companies.
According to a report by stock analyst Motilal Oswal Securities on car sale in December, the top carmaker Maruti Suzuki saw higher-than-estimated car sales on account of “fear of excise duty change”. But the growth in car sales might be affected due to a near 4% rise in excise duty starting January 1, the report said.
According to figures, apart from General Motors (GM) and Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), all major auto manufacturers have posted double-digit growth in December. While, Honda’s car sale grew 163% , Tata Motors registered a 30% jump in its passenger car sales and crossed 12,000-mark.
For Honda, while 5,200 Honda Amaze model — premium sedan — was sold in December, the City remained the highest selling vehicle. The Japanese auto-maker attributed the unprecedented success to a better penetration of dealer network, including the Tier-III cities apart from “two successful launches of Honda City and Mobilio”.
Japanese carmaker Nissan reported a 23.3% y-o-y jump in sales at 3,158 units in India in December. It had sold 2,561 vehicles in the year-ago period, Nissan Motor India said in a statement.
Ford India reported an increase of 28.47% in total sales at 14,401 units for December largely on account of a two-fold surge in the exports numbers. The company sold 11,209 units in December 2013, Ford India said in a statement. Ford’s domestic sales fell 36.05% to 3,754 units in December against 5,871 units in the same period last year, it added.
The exports, on other hand, jumped nearly two-fold to 10,647 units last month as against 5,338 units in the year-ago period.
In the two-wheeler space, TVS Motor sold 1,57,438 units in December 2014, posting a jump of 19% y-o-y.
While two-wheeler sales remained flat Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto’s total sales shrunk 6% year-on-year.
The real pick was Eicher Motor’s Royal Enfield that nearly doubled its sale of vehicles from 19,067 in December 2013 to 28,179 in December 2014.
As a whole, the demand for two-wheelers has been sluggish in the past few months but analysts say there is a strong sentiment prevailing among the dealers – post January the marriage season will start pulling the volume of sales up.
