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The Auto Expo in January is expected be a shot in the arm for carmakers by creating excitement at a time when the car market is witnessing a significant slowdown because of poor sentiment.
With up to 60 new launches, apart from product and brand unveilings scheduled to take place within a span of five days, industry experts feel that car sales may see a lift by January-March next year.
Passenger car sales have dipped five percent between April and October this year, with October (-24 per cent) marking the sharpest slide in 10 years. This has been attributed to negative market sentiment on the back of rising fuel prices, interest rates, as well as an increase in model prices on higher commodity costs.
“The market is not really saturated and this (lower car sales) is a temporary phenomena. People are postponing purchases, not cancelling plans to buy cars. The mood is subdued; the industry is going through tough times,” Mr Abdul Majeed, auto practice leader at PwC told Business Line . “New launches create excitement. Coupled with inflation coming down, and a better liquidity situation, we expect better situation by the end of the fourth quarter,” he added.
Mr Sugato Sen, Senior Director at industry body and Expo co-organiser Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said that the motor show will bring positive energy into the market.
“Two-wheelers and commercial vehicles are doing fine; only cars are impacted. This means there is money with customers, but they are not willing to spend. So a push is required, we expect sales to pick up after January,” he said.
Largest in Asia
While the Delhi Auto Expo 2012 will be the largest-ever in its 25-year history, it is also now touted to be the biggest in Asia. For the first time, all 10 global auto major will be present (French group PSA Peugeot Citroen the last to join), apart from sports and supercar makers Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and Maserati.
CarExpo Table
Around 45 automakers will showcase their model range, some new ones being BMW's Mini brand, BMW Motorrad, Peugeot and Triumph bikes.
“In the past few years, some automakers had opted out of participating in the Expo citing various reasons. This time, even though space is scarce, nobody wants to give it a miss it seems,” an industry official said.
Crowd management
After facing much flak for the chaos and poor crowd management in the last chapter, organisers SIAM, CII and ACMA have charted out a new plan for managing the motor show. For easier people movement, temporary hangars outside have been halved to 10.
“We have reallocated halls for component makers and the auto makers, so that they are grouped together and the crowd flow is better controlled. Reduction of hangars will help us keep the premises clean as garbage trucks and housekeeping can move around better,” SIAM Director-General, Mr Vishnu Mathur said.
Overall space this time has reduced marginally by 3,000 sq metre to 1.22 lakh sq metre, which has been distributed to all vehicle, component makers and visiting delegations, though negotiations for the use of more state pavilions is still on.
Highest space of 6,000 sq metre has been allocated to Tata Motors (with Jaguar Land Rover and Fiat), followed by 4,700 sq metre for Suzuki (Maruti Suzuki and Suzuki Motorcycles) and 2,600 sq metre for Mahindra's entire automotive offerings.
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