With the festival season kicking in in the South, automobile sales are slightly better than last year, say industry veterans. However, it will take a week’s time for a proper assessment of the entire demand situation as Onam was celebrated just three days ago, they added.
If the shortage of semiconductor still persists next month, then it would be a bad situation for the auto industry, as more festivals begin from September across India.
Still early days
“The demand is slightly better in the initial days as compared to the same period last year. We receive 800-900 bookings a day during Onam (in South), but it is too early to say anything right now. But, I can surely say that the average number is slightly better than last year in the last three days,” Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director (Marketing and Sales), Maruti Suzuki India, told
He said going forward, it will all depend on supply and demand as now nobody can predict anything because of semiconductor shortage.
“The supply is slow (because of the semiconductor shortages)…we need to take a considered view and a week’s time should be good to predict and make a real assessment on the demand,” he added.
Talking about retail sales, Vinkesh Gulati, President, Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA), said, “Pre-bookings were good initially around Onam. Car segment should be good as initial message has been positive with good opening stock. Since the festival season is just beginning so it is difficult to predict.” He also said that demand-supply would depend on semiconductor availability and if chip scarcity continues, then it would impact retail sales.
“Since August stocks were already supplied, it was good based on that. But, we cannot say anything about September right now,” he said. On discount levels and if there could be more discounts this year, Gulati said it was unlikely because the variants which are more in demand wouldn’t have any discount. Already there is a huge waiting period for each variant (because of semiconductor issue), so the products/ variants which are not in much demand would only have some discounts.
New launches
According to analysts, the companies have new launches planned for the festival season, and the new products would not attract any discount. For instance, Maruti Suzuki is launching all-new Celerio, Tata Motors has ‘Punch’ SUV coming, and Hyundai Motor India has the i20 N-Line.