FY2013–14 is a mixed bag for India manufacturers
After month long sluggish sales, some manufacturers showed rays of recovery in their annual reports. It seems the year end discounts and duty slash in the interim budget bore fruit as Honda, Nissan, Ford and Mercedes-Benz reported growth in sales. However, major players like Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra, Tata and Toyota marked a drop in sales.
Honda Cars India Limited made a huge positive impact as sales increased from 10,044 units in March 2013 to 18,426 units last month. The newly launched City and Amaze accounted for a large chunk with 9,518 and 7,374 units respectively. The annual sales of the Japanese manufacturer had also shot-up from 73,483 units to 1,34,339 units in 2013–14 financial year which marks an 83 per cent rise. Another Japanese giant, Nissan increased from 2,125 units in March 2013 to 7,019 units in March 2014. Thanks to the Datsun Go which managed to sell 2,072 units within ten days of its launch. Nissan also improved from 36,975 units during FY2012–2013 to 38,217 units last year. The Terrano managed 14,998 units while the Micra and Micra Active contributed 12,595 units in annual sales.
The launch of EcoSport boosted the sales of Ford cars and the manufacturer sold 6,356 units in 2013–14 against 5,271 units in the last fiscal year claiming a 20.58 per cent increase. Reports from Mercedes-Benz claim that they had sold 2,554 units in the period of Jan-March 2014 against 2,009 units in the same period last year which means a 27 per cent growth.
Though the above sales figures show a positive trend which is expected to boost the sales in coming months, major players are still struggling with the decline in sales. Industry leader Maruti Suzuki saw its domestic sales fall 5.2 per cent. The company sold 1,02,269 units in March 2014 against 1,07,890 in March 2013. Though the Ertiga, Swift and Ritz were upward in sales, smaller cars like the Alto and the WagonR showed a decline. Thanks to the success of the Grand i10 and back to back launches, the second largest manufacturer in India, Hyundai improved domestic sales by 3.4 per cent and registered 35,003 units in March 2014. However the Korean giant reported a decline of 8.37 per cent in their overall sales (including export) last month compared to March 2013.
Utility vehicles major, Mahindra sold 23,433 units last month against 25,847 units (9 per cent decline) in March 2013 and marked an 18 per cent decline in the financial year 2013–14 against 2012–13. Tata Motors sold 45,996 units including commercial and passenger vehicles in the country last month compared to the 69,160 units in 2013 a 33 per cent fall. A lock-out at the Toyota plant has resulted in a huge drop in sales proceeding to sell only 9,160 units against the 21,143 units in March 2013.
