Surprise! Tata Motors Tiago, Nexon sales jump, beat Hyundai, Mahindra

Homegrown auto major Tata Motors, which is seeing a turnaround in its fortunes, posted a 7% growth in its passenger vehicles (PV) segment, driven by demand for Tiago and Nexon. The growth assumes significance as the in past two months the overall sales in the auto industry have been subdued due to higher base effect from goods and services tax rollout last year, massive floods in Kerala and rising fuel prices and fall in rupee.

According to the Tata Motors executives, Tiago, which was launched in April 2016, has been able to sell over 1.7 lakh units so far and has been a money spinner for the company. It also helped the company bring in more individual owners to the fold than fleet buyers. Nexon, too, is managing to clock around 4,000 units in monthly sales for almost a year has beaten the cars in its category of rival companies. Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicles business unit, Tata Motors,  said the growth for the overall PV industry is stressed with de-growth in all three months of the quarter. “Having said that, we grew at 7% on the back of continued demand of our new generation vehicles.”

As per the latest statistics available with Tata Motors, domestic passenger vehicle sales in September continued its growth trend at 18,429 units compared to 17,286 units, higher by 7% over last year.

In comparison, Maruti Suzuki India, which sells every second car in the country, recorded a 0.7% growth in its domestic PV sales. The company executives attributed the slump in demand on high base in September last year due to an early arrival of the festive season and some pre-buying in anticipation of GST rate revision. The volume pusher vehicles like Alto, WagonR saw a massive decline in demand in excess of 9% during the month.

Homegrown rival Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) reported a 16% drop in its PV  sales. The company sold 21,411 units during September as compared to 25,414 units a year ago. A Mumbai-based analyst said that though a 16% drop for M&M is huge, the impact of its recent launches has not been captured in the figure. “It may get visible in the coming months”.

Even in August Tata Motors had posted a 24.98% jump in PV sales at 20,323 units. In the same month, MSI’s sales had fallen to 3.55% to 1,45,895 units and Hyundai Motor had posted a 2.76% drop at 45,801 units.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), which sold 12,512 units in the domestic market during September as against 12,335 units in the year-ago period, a mere 1.43% growth.

N Raja, deputy managing director, TKM, said in a statement that customer demand in the auto industry has temporarily dampened owing to rising fuel prices, floods in different parts of the country and impact of currency weakness. However, it is likely to improve with the upcoming of festival season.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), the country’s second largest car manufacturer, registered domestic sales of 47,781 units in September, down 4.5% from 50,028 units a year ago.

Vikas Jain, national sales head, Hyundai Motor India, said, “Despite some ongoing market challenges, we expect this festival season will induce positive sentiments.”

Sridhar V, partner, Grant Thornton India LLP, said that increase in input and fuel cost, a high base of the previous year, and people postponing their purchase in anticipation of discounts during upcoming festival season have all contributed to slow demand in PV sales.

Source: DNA Money