Car sales on a decline in metropolitan cities of India

With the advent of ride sharing services and improved public transport in the form of metro networks, car sales have seen a drop in large cities of India. Commuters face gridlocks and parking issues on a daily basis and hence more and more people seem to be swapping their cars for public transport.

According to a media report, 97,274 cars were sold in Mumbai in 2017-18 compared to 1.22 lakh in the previous year. That's a drop of 20%. In Bangalore, car sales dropped by 11% in the last fiscal. Delhi however, recorded a growth of 1.6% in car sales.

Meanwhile, more cars were sold in 2017-18 compared to the previous year in smaller cities. Lucknow saw a growth of 25%, while car sales in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh grew by 15% each. Kochi and Pune registered a growth of 7% and 2.4% respectively. That said, countrywide car sales grew by 10% during the same period.

According to Rakesh Srivastava, Director (Sales & Marketing) Hyundai India, the decline in sales in metropolitan areas can be attributed to more people using the metro and shared mobility platforms like Ola and Uber. N Raja, Deputy MD, Toyota Kirloskar told the media that fleet sales were adversely affected by GST, registering a drop of around 50% in 2017. Rajesh Goel, Director Sales and Marketing, Honda Cars India believes that growing congestion in large cities is likely to affect car sales in the years to come.

Source: TOI