Car Sales on a Rise March 2021 data Shows

The financial year 2020-2021 was crucial for automakers proving it to be a challenging and unprecedented year. The financial year that just got over,will be remembered for a number of reasons, including zero to meager sales in the first quarter, raw material cost hike in the third quarter and global chip shortage during the fourth quarter.

But they could conclude FY21 with a positive note in March. This upswing was driven largely by an unusually low base and other factors like easy finance, low interest rates, preference for personal mobility over public transport due to the pandemic.The supply of a range of new and affordable models of vehicles in all segments also contributed to it.

The notion of demand across segments remained unaffected in March 2021, despite a second parallel lockdown in certain parts.Sales of new vehicles plunged with the announcement of nationwide lockdown from March 22, 2020,during the first peak of the coronavirus outbreak in March-April last year. 

Carmakers said fear of a second wave of pandemic mounted the demand for the low segment cars in March 2021 because of the preference given to personal mobility instead of public transport.

The major player Maruti Suzuki,country’s largest carmaker reported a growth of 99.31% in its total sales during March 2021 on a year-on-year basis. It sold 167,014 vehicles last month as against 83,792 units in March 2020. The company reported a growth of 1.5% over February 2020, when it sold 164,469 units of vehicles.

The demand for sports utility vehicles (SUVs) also continued to remain higher led by new model launches across OEMs and better finance availability.

The second passenger vehicle giant Hyundai Motor India’s overall sales including exports grew to 64,621 units from 32,279 units sold during March 2020.Tarun Garg, director – sales, marketing and service, Hyundai Motor India, said, “This performance has been backed by our super performer brands such as Creta, Venue, Verna, Nios and the all-new i20.” 

Mahindra and Mahindra reported sales of 35,187 units in March 2021.The company had sold 6,679 units during the same period of 2020 amid sales disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.In the utility vehicles segment, Mahindra sold 16,643 units in March 2021, compared to 3,111 units in March 2020.

The automaker could sell 16,700 passenger vehicles last month in the domestic market and dispatched 3,383 units in March 2020.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) dispatched 15,001 units in March, the highest ever domestic sales in March since 2013. It has registered a 7% growth in domestic sales in March 2021 as compared to the sales in February 2021.

Tata Motors recorded total domestic sales of 66,609 units in March 2021 as compared to 11,012 units in the same month last year. The company’s total passenger vehicle sales last month was 29,654 units.

*Source: Industry reports

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Krishna Rath is a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser, and since 2015 has been educating netizens on investments and insurance. Krishna is a fee only SEBI RIA and is Odisha's first SEBI RIA. With background in IT, Krishna is changing the advisory space with new innovations in AdvisoryTech.

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