Tata Motors, India’s second biggest automaker, is on track to set another monthly record in terms of passenger auto sales in February, even as market leader Maruti Suzuki will continue to see a year-on-year decline, according to Emkay Research.
The third major listed automaker, Mahindra & Mahindra is also scheduled to report a strong February as far as passenger auto sales are concerned, the firm added.
According to its projections, Tata Motors will have a second month of 50%+ growth in its passenger vehicle sales in India in the form of February, with non-commercial total passenger vehicle sales coming in at 41,000 in February, compared to 40,777 in January and 27,225 in February last year.
While the numbers look similar compared to January, remember that this month has fewer days and a tally of 41,000 actually implies a jump of 11% in per-day sales.
On the other side is Maruti Suzuki, the market leader that has been having some trouble due to various factors, including lower rural demand, an ageing portfolio and semiconductor sourcing problems.
According to the projection, Maruti Suzuki’s February auto sales are going to disappoint again — in line with the performance seen in the last several months. The company had reported a 19% fall in its November passenger auto sales in India, followed by a 13% fall in December and a 7% decline in January.
The latest projections indicate that February will again see a sharp decline for India passenger vehicles. The number will fall by 9.5% on year to 1.36 lakh from 1.50 lakh in February last year.
The decline will be largely on account of poor car sales, which are likely to remain around 95,000 for February, while utility vehicle sales are seen remaining flattish at around 27,000 units during the month.
However, thanks to an increase of around 6,500 vehicles in exports, Maruti Suzuki’s total sales for February is likely to decline only by 4.5% on year to 1.57 lakh. This indicates a growth of 1.5% over January 2022.
Despite the setbacks, Maruti Suzuki’s India passenger vehicle sales are on track to report a growth in the current financial year, though by the slimmest of margins.
The third major listed automaker, Mahindra & Mahindra, is likely to post another month of strong growth in February, with total domestic passenger vehicle sales likely to remain in the 19,000 range, compared to around 20,000 in January. Given that it sold only 15,391 in Feb 2021, this translates to a respectable 23% jump in February auto sales this year.
CV SALES
Mahindra & Mahindra is also seen as maintaining the strong growth momentum witnessed in its commercial auto sales numbers in January.
CV for the company sales are likely to remain strong at 17,500 during the month. While this is less impressive than the 21,111 CVs sold in January, it is still nearly double the 9,202 units sold in February of last year.
Meanwhile, no such year-on-year bump is expected for Tata Motors’ commercial vehicle sales. Tata Motors’ CV sales are expected to remain stable at around 32,000 during February 2022, up modestly from the 31,248 vehicles sold in the same month of 2021 and 31,708 units sold in January 2022.
Ashok Leyland too is seen posting stable sales for the month at 12,900, vs 12,776 in the year-ago period and 12,709 in January.
Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles or VECV, which is especially strong in the medium and light segments, is expected to report a slight decline in February sales to 4,600 units from 4,825 in the same month of last year. Nevertheless, the projected number is higher than the 4,523 tally recorded for January this year.