India’s Sales Recovery Poised to Accelerate

The current growth in India's car and truck market will strengthen in the six months beginning in September, predicts the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

Sales of passenger and commercial vehicles in the country began a modest recovery nine months ago and have slowly improved since then.

Demand in July for passenger vehicles surged 17% to a record 162,000 vehicles, led by hefty increases for Maruti Suzuki (+26% to 91,600 units) and Honda (+42% to 17,600 units). Commercial vehicle deliveries grew 8% to 51,800 units.

But SIAM notes that July's results were uneven. Several carmakers posted only modest sales gains, and year-on-year sales fell at Ford, General Motors and Mahindra.

SIAM predicts new models will stimulate demand over the next several months. The group also says a wetter monsoon season will help farmers, thereby generating more sales in rural markets.

Growth for the full fiscal year is likely to exceed the 6%-8% growth rate predicted six months ago, according to SIAM. The group notes car and truck domestic sales in fiscal 2014-2015 totaled 3.22 million vehicles.