PV, two-wheeler sales fall, three-wheelers shine in December 2021

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers has released the sales numbers for December 2021 and the October-December 2021. While sales of PVs and two-wheelers fell, the silver lining to the month’s performance was the performance of three-wheelers sales.

The slowdown is due to the continuing semiconductor shortage, high raw-material costs, shortage of containers, and high freight costs.

PV sales were at 219,421 units, down 14 percent as against December 2020 sales of 252,998 units. Two-wheeler sales in December 2021 stood at 1,006,062 units as against 1,127,917 vehicles in December 2020, down 11 percent, and three-wheeler sales stood at 28,111 units in December 2021 compared to 22,476 units in the year-earlier month.

President, SIAM, Kenichi Ayukawa, said, “Amidst the rising infections, the automobile industry is taking all necessary precautions in line with the government guidelines. As in the past, Industry continues to stand with the government to support the country wherever possible. He said that Q3 sales including those of the festive season were not as per expectations. All segments are still behind by many years. The industry is working hard to maximize production and minimize the impact of supply constraints while ensuring that those in the entire value chain are safe.”

Rajesh Menon, Director General, SIAM said, “Demand of Passenger Vehicle Segment was largely affected by supply constraints while two-wheelers were majorly impacted due to subdued demand. PV sales in Q3 were the lowest in 5 years while for two-wheelers were the lowest in 9 years. Only the heavy goods segment in CVs have shown positive growth compared to Q3 of the previous two years. Barring 2020, CV sales were the lowest in the last 5 years and three-wheelers barring 2020, has been the lowest in the last 13 years.”

Passenger Vehicles
Maruti Suzuki India produced 148, 767 units in December 2021 and 1,139,780 units in April-December 2021-22 period. In the domestic market, Maruti sold 123,016 in December 2021, 12.6% growth. Also, for the nine-month period, domestic sales grew by 8.2%.

Hyundai sold 348,828 units in April-December 2021-22, 10.62% over the year-earlier period. In  December 2021, the company sold 17,722 units. On the other hand, Kia Motors India sold 7797 units in December 2021, down 34 percent.  Kia sold 150,665 units from April-December 2021-22.

Renault India sold 64,270 units in the domestic market for the nine-month period. For the same period,  Nissan India had domestic sales of 27,965 units.

Two-wheelers
Hero MotoCorp sold 3,537,640 for the nine-month period ended December 2021. It sold 4,104,777 in the same period last year, down 13.8 %. Honda sold 210,638 in December 2021 as against 242,046 units in December 2020. For the period of April-December 2021-22, it sold 2,558,379 units, a 0.3% decline. In the nine-month period ended December 2021, Bajaj Auto sold 1,301,984 units,  down 1.48% from 1,321,644 units sold in the year-earlier period.  TVS Motor’s December sales were down 17%.  For the nine-month period ended December 2021, it sold 15,09,615 units as against 15,61, 712 units in the year-earlier period.

A total of 11,115,915 units of two-wheelers were sold in the nine-month period April-December 2021.

Commercial Vehicles
Tata Motors sold 210,227 units for April-December 2021-22, a 47.74% growth. It sold 142,292 units for the same period in the previous year. Mahindra & Mahindra sold 116, 003 units in April-December 2021-22 against 116,453 units. Ashok Leyland had domestic sales of 72,766 units compared to 51,780 units in April-December 2020-21. Total CV sales rose 30 percent to 466,763 units in April-December 2021 as against 358,203 units in the year-earlier period.