NEW DELHI
India’s 31-day festive season went well for the automobile industry with SUVs offering growth acceleration. Honda Cars India registered 24 per cent year-on-year growth in domestic sales with 8,730 units in November 2023 and a whopping 335 per cent yoy growth in exports at 3,161 units in November 2023, as its product line-up saw a good surge in demand throughout the festive period. The company had registered 7,051 in domestic sales and exported 726 units in November’22.
“Our new SUV Honda Elevate has been well received by the market with very high customer consideration,” says Yuichi Murata, Director, Marketing and Sales who is confident to carry forward this growth momentum for the rest of the year. Honda Car’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is located at Tapukara, District. Alwar, Rajasthan.
Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) is gearing up to end calender year 2023 on a high note and usher in CY 2024 on a positive one with the company’s India’s SUV line-up driving the company’s total sales to 65,801 units in November 2023. The domestic dispatches total 49,451 units which is 3.01 per cent year-on-year increase from 48,002 units sold in India in November 2022. Hyundai’s exports increased 2.18 per cent yoy at 16,350 units from 16001 units in the corresponding month of the previous year. On a cumulative basis, the company’s sales were up 2.80 per cent yoy from 64,003 units in November 2022 Encouraging customer response has led to higher retail sales during the festival season driving the dealer network stock at a very optimum level of 3 weeks, according to Tarun Garg, COO, HMIL. He added, “The SUV line-up continues to exhibit robust momentum, contributing over 60 per cent to our overall sales,” says Garg, “with EXTER achieving a major milestone of 1 lakh bookings”. The company presently operates with a robust network of 1 358 sales points and 541 service points across India. Nomura Ratings expects PV wholesales to have grown 340k units (+5 per cent y-y) in November. “Post the festive season, inventory with PV dealers is on the higher side especially for the mass segment (45 days) and waiting periods have come down sharply,” say Nomura analysts Kapil Singh and Siddhartha Bera.
Continuing its growth trend, backed by strong demand for the SUV portfolio, Mahindra & Mahindra’s overall auto sales for the month of November 2023 stood at 70,576 vehicles, a growth of 21 per cent, including exports. The utility vehicles segment registered a 32 per cent jump in sales at 39,981 vehicles in the domestic market,and overall, 40,764 vehicles, including exports. The domestic sales for commercial vehicles stood at 22,211. “While we saw a healthy festive season, we faced supply challenges on select parts during the month,” noted Veejay Nakra, President, Automotive Division. “We are keeping a close watch and taking appropriate steps to mitigate the challenges,” he added. Toyota Kirloskar Motor which is celebrating 25 years of operations in India, marked the next innings of its operations with wholesales of 17,818 units in November 2023, achieving a y-o-y growth of 51 per cent over November 2022 when it sold 11,765 units.