Lesser vehicles roll out as year comes to an end

Kochi: There is a sharp fall in the number of new vehicles being rolled out at the fag end of the year and the month of December has so far registered a record dip in vehicle registration.  The reason?  People are waiting for the ‘new model’ and the new ‘CA’ series. 

“Against an average monthly registration of 3000 vehicles, only 686 vehicles were registered so far in December, a fall by around 50 per cent. The BZ series is not over yet (BZ-3777 as on Monday). The trend has been on for the last three months," a senior official said. 

While in October, the total number of vehicle registrations touched 2544, the figures for November were 2316, well below the average.  "Vehicle sale is often assessed on the model or year of manufacture, so people think a wait of one to two months will enable them to have the model as 2014. Also there are a lot of enquiries coming in about the 'CA' series. We hope to have an auction on every number at the start of the series," the officer said.

“I've booked a bullet six months ago and it has arrived at the showroom. But I'm waiting for the start of the ‘CA’ series to register my ‘Standard 500’,” said Vinod Kumar K S, a photographer by profession.

There is also a change in the trend of vehicles being sold. Till a few years ago, the number of two-wheelers sold used to be more than double the number of cars sold. The trend is now shifting in favour of cars.