The COVID 19 Coronavirus outbreak has taken its toll on the automobile industry in March. Here’s how…
The automobile industry seems to be hard struck by the Coronavirus pandemic. As reports suggest, auto sales here recorded massive degrowths in March 2020.
As per the reports from SIAM, the passenger vehicles segment has had a massive 51% downfall last month. Manufacturers were able to sell just 143,014 units during the span. The figures had been as healthy as 291,861 exactly a year ago. Commercial vehicles have seen an even worse tumble. Selling just 13,027 units in the month, it is a whopping 88.05% decline for the CV manufacturers. They had had a healthy sales figure of 109,022 units back in March 2019. The three wheeler industry recorded a 58.34% fall in sales, while the two-wheelers had it better with a slightly lower 39.83% degrowth.
The Indian automotive industry had been on a slow pace when the outbreak of the pandemic made things worse. The BS6 regulations and the associated chaos had been doing every bit possible to complement the general market downturn when the COVID 19 took things miles further ahead.
Let us talk about the time span from April 2019 to March 2020. The industry produced a total of 26,362,284 units (Passenger vehicles, commercial vehicle, two wheelers, three wheelers and quadricycles combined) during April-March 2020. The figures had, in the previous year, touched 30,914,874 during the same time! That is a serious 14.73% decline overall. The PV segment ( Passenger Vehicles) recorded degrowth of 17.82% during April-March 2020 while the commercial vehicles, three-wheelers and two-wheelers had had declines of 28.72%, 9.19% and 17.76% respectively.
Judging from the prevailing conditions, it would take quite some time for things to get back in place. Manufacturers are doing every bit possible to save their dealer partners from falling deeper into the current crisis.
See this for maker-wise breakdown of sales
