The festive season has seen a heartening swing towards an upsurge in sales of passenger cars and scooters during the month of October 2015 with a growth of 21.80 percent and 36.80 percent respectively witnessed by the two segments with passenger vehicles growing at an overall 21.46 percent growth rate according to the latest SIAM data for the month.

The last couple of months have seen a recovery as per the industry sales numbers and SIAM is optimistic of the industry ending this financial year with a high single digit growth.

Sugato Sen, deputy director general of SIAM, who had earlier told Autocar Professional that the PV segment was likely to end with a growth ranging between 6-8 percent, is bullish that it could end between 8-10 percent seeing the return of positive market sentiments and decline in interest rates and fuel prices.

Between April-October, the overall auto industry grew 2.46 percent while PVs grew 8.51 percent with cars seeing a rise of 11.52 percent, utility vehicles flat at 0.94 percent and vans growing marginally at 1.38 percent.

Commercial vehicles, which are driven by commercial demand with purchases not affected by the festive season, rose 12.73 percent with M&HCVs up 23.97 percent. Vishnu Mathur, director general of SIAM, says that since last month even LCVs are showing an improvement and have turned positive in October at a growth of 6.83 percent after 29 months of declining fortunes. This is an indicator that the economy is showing an improvement and sales are starting to pick up. In the rural markets, motorcycle sales are still to pick up. CVs being dependent on investment cycles and movement of goods are showing a growth due to infrastructure development projects, while LCV sales fared better in October due to replacement demand by small time operators. Operators are making purchases after almost two years to replace old and ageing vehicles.

However, three-wheelers continued their decline at 8.47 percent during April-October with motorcycles de-growing at 2.57 percent and mopeds at 5.26 percent. Overall, the two-wheeler segment posted a marginal growth of 1.72 percent on the back of new scooter launches.

Exports grew 5.78 percent during this period with PVs rising 6.34 percent, CVs growing 17.95 percent with M&HCVs up 12.60 percent and LCVs growing at a higher 20.90 percent.

Three-wheelers saw an uptick of 18.59 percent while two-wheelers rose 3.22 percent.

During October, the auto industry grew 13.91 percent with PVs up 21.46 percent and CVs saw an uptick of 12.73 percent with M&HCVs growing 23.97 percent and LCVs 6.83 percent; three-wheelers showed a marginal improvement of 0.10 percent and two-wheelers grew 13.31 percent.

However, exports de-grew 5.56 percent with the highest decline registered by PVs at 21.83 percent, followed by the M&HCV segment at 15.54 percent, two-wheelers at 11.73 percent, three-wheelers at 8.85 percent. LCV exports however grew at 5.71 percent.

The industry body maintains that the recent election results in Bihar will not impact the growth of the auto industry as the current growth momentum that is being experienced by the industry is despite any major reforms having taken place in the country. Being a state election it will not impact central government policies.

Also read: INDIA SALES ANALYSIS - OCTOBER 2015