Automakers see best festival sales in 4 years

Pune: The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations, or Fada, on Monday said car retail sales in the festive month of October zoomed 41 per cent at 3,28,645 units and the total vehicle sales also surged 48 per cent year-on-year with all categories like two-wheeler, three-wheeler, tractor and commercial vehicles registering growth.

The automotive dealers' body said the total retail sales last month stood at 20,94,378 units, up 48 per cent from 14,18,726 registrations in October 2021.
The registrations last month were even better by 8 per cent against October 2019, a pre-Covid month.

The festive season this year turned out to be the best for the industry in the last four years.

Last month, commercial vehicle retail sales, the barometer of economic activity, were up 25 per cent at 74,443 units against 59,363 units in the year-ago period. Three-wheeler and tractor retails were up 66 and 17 per cent respectively over October 2021.

“With most of the month under festive period, the sentiments were extremely positive across all categories of dealership. Even when compared to pre-covid month of 2019, overall retail sales for the first time closed in green," Fada president Manish Raj Singhania said in a statement.

The robust demand last month brought cheer to the industry as customers in every segment came out in good numbers, making it the best in the last four years, he added.

"As anticipated earlier, the passenger vehicle segment saw the best year in a decade by outgrowing 2020 numbers by 2 per cent,” Singhania said.