India’s car industry sales rebounded by 15 percent in August on a monthly basis, data showed Tuesday, but the industry still expects to contract in 2013/14 for the second year in a row.
Carmakers sold 133,486 cars in India in August, up by 15.4 percent from the same month in 2012, snapping a record nine months of declining sales, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said.
But the increase came off a low base due to weak output in the same month in 2012 caused by the temporary shutdown of a key car manufacturing plant.
“This is not a turnaround, it’s going to be another year of negative growth in car sales,” SIAM Deputy Director General Sugato Sen told AFP. “That rise in the car sales headline figure is an illusion — it does not reflect market realities.”
“We are still stuck in a tough market … the mood of consumers remains bad,” Sen said.
India’s car market has been hit by a triple whammy of high interest rates, a sharp economic slowdown and rising fuel costs.
That figure contrasted with a sharp rebound in China’s monthly passenger-vehicle sales, as the world’s second-biggest economy recovers from a two-quarter slowdown.
Last August’s car sales were depressed by the shutdown of India’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki for around a month following a riot by workers in which one manager was killed.
Last year, domestic passenger car sales fell by 6.7 percent to 1.89 million from a year earlier — the first contraction in a decade.
SIAM initially expected sales to grow by one to three percent this year to March 2014.
“There is no way we are looking at daylight anywhere. Things are pretty bad with sales down around 8.5 percent for the January to August period,” independent auto analyst Deepesh Rathore told AFP.
Indian car sales jump 15% but sector still seen in decline
