Saturday, December 10, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
Indian auto industry sales to dip in coming months- trade pundits assert
Indian automotive trade pundits are speculating a sales dip in cars further in India, which is of course not a good hearsay from industry’s point of view. The society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM) has reasoned steady rupee depreciation, rising fuel prices and higher interest rates behind its say, as all these factors have directly affected the raw material cost, which might end up in sales fall.
Sales sheet for April to November 2011 too shows such signs; the car sales during this period were seen descending by half a percent, while the commercial vehicle and two wheeler segments did decently well having marked the growth of 19.5 and 16.11 percent respectively.
Anand Rathi’s Vice president for equity sales, Devang Mehta reported that if somebody is planning to buy a car might delay his/her decision for about 3 months in the anticipate of interest rates to go down. However the increase in the price of passenger car might compensate the situation.
On the contrary, price rise in cars will once again draw consumers towards two wheelers, so here ones loss might become others gain.
The speculation appears to turning into reality, as recently most of the Indian car makers have made their price rise stand official. General Motors, Toyota Kirloskar, Hyundai and Ford India are amongst the few firsts to announce their price rise plans, according to which, the cars are to go expensive by up to 3 per cent from January 2012.
