Carmakers raise FY24 sales growth projection to 8.2%
car industry has for the second time revised upwards its growth projections for this fiscal to more than 8%, nearly twice the rate projected at the start of the year.
Passenger vehicle sales in the local market are expected to grow by 8.1-8.2% to 4.23 million units in FY24, buoyed by better-than-expected economic growth especially in the last two quarters, favourable monsoons despite the El Niño conditions, and effective monetary policies that helped rein in high inflation without affecting domestic consumption buoyed demand, industry insiders said.
Earlier in the year, the industry had estimated sales of 4 million units and 4.13 million units.
“The initial forecast for the PV industry was between 5% to 7%,” said Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki. “Around July, because of continued supply constraints, the estimates veered to a lower bias. This was reinforced by forecasts of a weaker monsoon due to El Nino and higher repo rates due to inflationary pressure,” he said.
“However, monsoons turned out to be near normal and auto loan rates creeped up only partially and this, together with healthy GDP growth, supported demand, which is now expected to be 8.2% over last year,” Srivastava told ET.
On a cumulative basis, the industry dispatched 3.86 million cars to showrooms between April 2023 and February 2024, a growth of 8.6% over 3.55 million units in the year-ago period. Car dispatches for the entire FY23 stood at 3.89 million units.
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