Auto Sales Down 19% YoY In January, All Segments Report Drop In Sales

Automotive industry sales for the month of January 2022 in India fell almost 19% on a YoY basis, with all three major vehicle segment – passenger vehicles, three- and two-wheelers recording degrowth of 8%, 10% and 21% respectively. 

Data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) also highlighted the sorry picture from an exports perspective, with overall exports down 1.75% across all vehicle segments. The only saving grace was the passenger vehicle segment that exported 40,787 units to report a 9.68% growth over the same period last year.

Rajesh Menon, Director General, SIAM highlighted that omicron related concerns and semi-conductor shortages were the reasons behind the continued downfall in sales in the Indian market. 

“There is clearly a demand issue for two-wheelers due to lower rural off-take of entry level models. Three-Wheelers continue to be severely affected due to lower sales. On the other hand, passenger vehicle segment is unable to meet the market demand due to supply side challenges, resulting in sales in January 2022 being even lower than January 2021,” he said.

The overall sales figures also include domestic sale of one unit of a quadricycle, and 49 units of exports. 

Passenger Vehicles

The overall passenger vehicles (PVs) segment saw sales of 254,287 units last month, against 276,554 units in January 2021 – a fall of 8.05% YoY. Within this segment, the biggest drop came in passenger cars. From 153,244 units in January last year, passenger car sales dropped 17.33% to 126,693 units this year. Exports of passenger cars saw a marginal 0.94% growth on a YoY basis to close January 2022 at 25,226 units. 

Vans too witnessed degrowth of 10.02% to close the month with sales of 10,632 units, while exports dropped to just 50 units, which is 62.12% less than the 132 units exported a year back. 

The only happy story within PVs came from the utility vehicles space. While domestic sales grew 4.90% to 116,962 units last month, exports grew a healthy 28.57% with a total of 15,511 UVs exported in January 2022. 

Two-Wheelers

The story isn’t different in the two-wheeler segment as well. Overall domestic sales dropped 21.09% on a YoY basis to close January 2022 with 1,128,293 units. All the sub-segments in the 2W space witnessed significant fall in numbers compared to a year ago – scooter sales dropped 23.29%, motorcycle sales fell 18.83% and moped sales also degrew by 39.35%. 

Motorcycles contributed 66% of the total 2W sales in the month of January in domestic sales, while their share in exports was an even higher 91%.

Talking of exports, scooter exports grew a healthy 30.37% YoY – but that is the only positive news in 2W exports. Although 341,453 motorcycle units were exported in January 2022, in terms of percentage, it reflected a 4.83% drop YoY. Moped exports dropped 70% to just 144 units last month.

Three-Wheelers

From a domestic sales perspective, passenger carriers in the three-wheeler segment saw a minor 3.84% growth last month over the same period in 2021, but exports dropped over 5% in the same month. Goods carriers, on the other hand, degrew 35.40% to close January 2022 with 6,143 units. In contrast, exports of 3W goods carriers grew 67.48% over a smaller base of 741 units in January 2021 to report 1,241 of exports last month. 

Overall, 24,091 units of three-wheelers were reported in January 2022, which is 10.09% lower than the 26,794 units the segment reported in January last year. Overall 3W exports too fell 3.71% to close at 39,151 units.