[ramzsys]

Is it the economy? (what explains the Hector/Venue overbooking)

Is it the BS6 transition?(but then what explains the Alto sales drop- petrol model).

is it that people have decided enough with the cars? Like, what's the point of doing the same urban crawl in a new car?

[pannags]

A disappointing July for the behemoth. Sales figures end up lower than estimates - 33.5% down compared to the same period in 2018

Maruti Suzuki India, country's largest passenger vehicle maker, disappointed the analysts on August 1 by reporting sharp fall in July sales.

Company sold 1.09 lakh units in July 2019, the lowest in last two-year, down by 33.5 percent compared to 1.64 lakh units sold in the same period, previous year.

Numbers were lower than Nomura expectation of 1.17 lakh units for the month.

Maruti said domestic sales in July 2019 were down 35.1 percent at 1 lakh units and passenger car sales fell 36.2 percent to 71,486 units compared to July 2018.

Maruti saw weak demand across segments with mini (Alto, Old WagonR) category showing a 69.3 percent fall YoY, and compact category (New WagonR, Ignis, Baleno, Swift) reporting a 23 percent decline YoY in July 2019

However, the only segment that registered a half a percent growth was light commercial vehicle, under which it sells Super Carry

Full report on Moneycontrol

[parth.jain]

I feel that amongst other reasons, the introduction of BSVI vehicles could be a reason for the downfall in sales. Mostly car-buying population is educated nowadays and knows that BSIV vehicles will not be sold after April 2020 and will be available at huge discounts from next year (like two-wheelers were available at throwaway prices). Maybe people are deferring their purchase to avail some discounts.
Also, what do the sales figures of two-wheelers say?

[NST440]

I was never so afraid of checking automotive news as i am these days , thanks to all the inputs by our Govt. and daily imposition of new norms to burden a commoner and punish him for buying a car. The gamut of duties, customs, fee , fine etc. have ensured that an average Indian gets panic attack even at the thought of contemplating a new purchase. Probably no clarity on fate of ICE is big reason for people steer clear from purchasing a vehicle as of now.

Add to it the unreasonable and exorbitant prices of Cars these days by adding few toys and gimmicks, a person can actually find himself in an imbroglio if he has to buy a safe vehicle within 7 lacs budget. I still remember when the prices of new Innova and Fortuner were announced, i felt either i am earning too less as per current standards or their's seriously a lot of greed somewhere in the mind of these manufacturers.

Talking about Maruti sales going down, look at their Cars and the increase in their prices, those tin cans with the same kind of engine in each car is selling north of 10 lacs which is seriously way beyond what the actual prices should be, no offence to Maruti loyalists , just my opinion.

A common man gets punched from all angles, rising electricity bills, increasing school fee/ college fee/ tuition fee/ of kids, insecurity in pvt. sector jobs, paying ever increasing health insurance, life insurance , motor insurance premiums ,doing investments to save tax , home loan, education loan, saving for exigencies and the list goes on. When sustainability and buying basic means is at stake, car buying can take a back seat for good.

Regarding road infrastructure, i cannot even share the sheer agony i go through to reach my work place.Potholes, animals on road, humans (behaving like animals) on road, road rage, overloaded trucks,trolleys, combines, thrashers, bikers coming to scratch you from nooks and corners, brats driving like insane with white high beams and auxiliary lights blinding you.

Driving was once therapeutic to me, now its a burden. No matter you drive a Bimmer or a humble M800, you go through the same torture. The sales dip is a combination of myriad forces and i feel its here to stay, expect some action during diwali and new year only.

[pganapathy]

I once had two cars in my house, my parents and my in-laws. Over time, we have slowly sold one of mine and one of my parents and are considering selling one from my in-laws as well. We are not very keen to purchase new cars. We have old cars and in one case sold two and bought one used car to replace them. It is only because my parents and in-laws live in Coorg that I am not pushing for them to sell the other car. As long as I live in Bangalore/Bombay, I am planning to keep my car and run it till it dies. At that point, I will either lease a car or use the cab aggregators. It makes no sense to drive in a big city anymore. Traffic is miserable, you have excessive drink-drive checking on virtually any night of the week and the lack of free parking and high cost of paid parking makes the cost of a new car prohibitive when it doesn't need to be.

The biggest concern I see with auto-manufacturers is they seem to have missed the bus on what customers want. Their pricing is high, they are pushing outdated models (electric or hybrid is the future), and they are dealing with customers more open to rent/lease models than outright purchase. Look at the success of cab and two-wheeler rental companies.

In some ways I am happy that so many companies are going out of business. If you have a bad business model, you deserve to pay for it. Unfortunately, the side effect of that is unemployment, but long term it is better for the country that only good businesses and business models thrive. Otherwise, it will be like it was from the 1950's to the 1990's, when the Ambassador kept selling with virtually no improvements.

[Rathore_13]

I know of a few dealers who changed loyalties too i.e. shut showroom for nissan/GM/Ford and moved to MG. One Tata dealer moved to Toyota. All I'm trying to say is that we should look at net decrease.

[volkman10]

Bleak future in the Auto Segment, no silver lining yet to be seen.

India’s passenger vehicle sales in July are estimated to have fallen 31%, the sharpest fall.

The sharpest fall in passenger vehicle sales previously was 24.6%, recorded in November 2008. Sales have been falling every month for the past year, with an exception of October when the numbers were nearly flat.

Maruti Suzuki:

We don’t see any positive signal in the marketplace that will give a sense of optimism in the future. We will wait and watch

Link

[BoneCollector]

We've a 7 year old Wagon R which is doing duties fine as of now, we may look for a replacement some time next year or so if required. Brezza is 3 years old and we intend to keep it for atleast next 3-4 years so that picture is clearer what we can go for - electric/hybrid or something else. Brother has a 10 month old S-Cross so no question of changing it any time soon. Sister-in-law has a City which is due for replacement and we are actually looking forward to it.

Now extrapolate this to thousands of people if not lacs, especially salaried middle class tax-payers who would be having a fairly new car or an old one doing good job and there is no need for replacing immediately. That means that lesser people would be going in for a new car amongst the earlier owners. And new car owners would be mainly first time buyers. In this case, isn't the market kind of saturated and coming down the plateau phase? Or am I missing something?

[sri_tesla]

Many people seems to be attributing the downturn in sales are due to GST, BSIV or EV support, etc... but the situation is same across the world. Downturn in India started a bit late compared to markets like China.

China:
For the first time in 2 decades, China automobile sales declined in 2018 and continuing in 2019. China recorded 12 months continuous sales decline till June 2019 (July numbers are not revealed yet) and these declines are in double digits. Due to drastic downturn, there were huge discounts up to 50% in June to clear the inventory.

Europe:
Europe sales are flat in 2018 compared to 2017 but posted huge declines in almost all months in H1, 2019. Some charts below for EU.

EU H1 2019:


EU June 2019:


Here is an FT article content posted on reddit about German industry situation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/c...nys_prospects/

[sagarpadaki]

Well, this slowdown had to happen at some point in time.In addition to the various financial constraints that a common man has to live with, more than 2 lakh vehicles are registered every month at RTO's across the country and 80% of these are in tier 1 and tier 2 cities. The roads in the cities cannot take further vehicles. The road infrastructure is on the verge of collapse. Coupled that with haphazard parking on the streets which further worsens the space availability on roads. Point is, we have almost run out of space to accommodate the vehicles.A 10-12km commute in city takes 1.5 hours!The queues and wait time at the tolls, especially when one is travelling out of a city is frustrating. I think we may have reached the breaking point depending on which city we live.

[volkman10]

India slips to 7th largest economy in 2018: World Bank

•The US remains the top economy with a GDP of $20.5 trillion in 2018
•India has been pushed to the seventh place in the global GDP rankings in 2018
•China was the second largest economy with $13.6 trillion, while Japan took the third place with $5 trillion


Link

[Nav-i-gator]

Greed...

If we consider the entry level variant and the top variant of any car, we can see the greed Auto makers have fallen to, which is now paying back in the guise of falling sales. Even the features spread across variants is forced on the customers. Want rear wiper? Buy the "Options" variant with few unnecessary features and exorbitant price. Want 6/7 airbags? Same. It's basically one or two important features related to safety/comfort in the top variants with lots of unnecessary features/gimmicks (like ambient lighting, fancy Telematics, slightly bigger touch screen, extra chrome garnish/brushed metal/black-out treatment of sundry places) carrying huge price premium that customers are forced to buy.

Well deserved slow down I would say. Only problem is possible loss of employment esp in blue collar jobs.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Greed...

If we consider the entry level variant and the top variant of any car, we can see the greed Auto makers have fallen to, which is now paying back in the guise of falling sales. Even the features spread across variants is forced on the customers. Want rear wiper? Buy the "Options" variant with few unnecessary features and exorbitant price. Want 6/7 airbags? Same. It's basically one or two important features related to safety/comfort in the top variants with lots of unnecessary features/gimmicks (like ambient lighting, fancy Telematics, slightly bigger touch screen, extra chrome garnish/brushed metal/black-out treatment of sundry places) carrying huge price premium that customers are forced to buy.

Well deserved slow down I would say. Only problem is possible loss of employment esp in blue collar jobs.

True. Greed among manufacturers is huge, especially in India. Variants are under equipped and over priced. I do not agree with manufacturers claiming higher input costs and hike the price of cars twice an year. Effectively, car prices increases ~10% yearly. What this has resulted in is that people think thrice before thinking of upgrading their car. Consider our use case. We have a 9 year old i20 ASTA which we purchased for 8.5L OTR and is obsessively maintained. It is pretty loaded and serves our purpose. A logical upgrade to a Pseudo SUV or a C Segment Sedan. Both of them in their fully loaded variants cost 18-20L on road, which is a big turn off from upgrading.Along with the one time purchase cost, the recurring cost of Car insurance and yearly service is also considerably pricey. Hence , we decided to hold on to i20 as long as will serve us well.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

True. Greed among manufacturers is huge, especially in India.

Exactly. And solution to this current slow down (at least partial solution) is right there - Made to order variants!

Just give a base model car with good engine, transmission and safety kit, and give customers a list of options for features they want to have, to add to it before the allotted car is dispatched from the factory. That way, dealers will not have to keep huge inventories (due to a plethora of variants for each model), customers have a say in what all they want in their car as features/safety options. Customers will have power in their hands to customize the car to their budget and liking. Even better would be to have larger, multi-brand car dealers.

[adhd92]

Originally Posted by NST440

Regarding road infrastructure, i cannot even share the sheer agony i go through to reach my work place.Potholes, animals on road, humans (behaving like animals) on road, road rage, overloaded trucks,trolleys, combines, thrashers, bikers coming to scratch you from nooks and corners, brats driving like insane with white high beams and auxiliary lights blinding you.

Driving was once therapeutic to me, now its a burden. No matter you drive a Bimmer or a humble M800, you go through the same torture.

THIS! EXACTLY THIS!
Driving experience has become ridiculously bad in my city. I legit hate being on the road and as someone who was so passionate about the drive, I envy people who have personal chauffeurs!