Pune: With rising inventory levels at dealerships, passenger vehicle wholesales dropped 2.32 per cent at 3,52,500 units in August. The automakers had dispatched a total of 3,60,897 units in the same month last year. This is the second consecutive decline in August in passenger vehicles wholesales this fiscal after July 2024, which was down by 2.5 per cent at 3,44,076 units.
Automakers in India mostly report wholesale dispatches to dealers and not retail sales to customers.
Carmakers are hopeful of healthy demand in the upcoming festive season during the Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra starting Sep 7 and Onam in Kerala from Sep 16.
Sales at market leader Maruti Suzuki last month fell 8 per cent to 143,075 units. “We calibrated our dispatches with market demand to bring down stocks at dealerships,” said Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki.
He said the inventory in the channel has now come down to 36 days (from 38 days earlier). “We want to maintain this level, we do not want to bring this down further because lower stocks could impact availability of vehicles and lead to loss of sales during the festive season,” Banerjee noted.
Sales at Hyundai Motor also declined 8 per cent to 49,525 units last month from 53,830 units in the year-ago period.
"The SUVs, led by models like Creta, Venue and Exter remain a key growth driver for HMIL in 2024 with 66.8 per cent contribution to domestic sales,” said Tarun Garg, Whole-time Director and Chief Operating Officer at HMIL.
He said the company is gearing up to launch the new Alcazar, adding that he was confident of strong festive season sales. Sales at Tata Motors too dropped 3 per cent to 44,142 units last month.
Sales at Honda cars stood at 5,326 units, down from 7,880 units sold last year. However, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), Kia and MG Motor India bucked the trend to grow volumes last month on demand for their utility vehicles. While sales at Toyota went up by 35 per cent to 28,589 units, that at Kia rose 17.19 per cent to 22,523 units. JSW MG Motor retailed 4,571 units in August, with more than a third of these sales coming in from EVs.
