Breaking a two-year spell, two-wheeler sales have shown signs of a revival in October and November, even as the sales of cars and SUVs, which had kept the industry going for the last two years, are starting to show signs of exhaustion.
This is in sync with the widespread expectation that two-wheelers will outpace four-wheeler growth in the near future to make up for the last two years.
November auto sales got off to a promising start, with Bajaj Auto Ltd reporting a 77% jump in its two-wheeler sales in India to 2.19 lakh. However, exports could not keep up, and fell by -6% per cent. As a result, the company recorded a 33 per cent growth in overall two-wheeler sales in November. After combining the sales of two-wheelers and three-wheelers, Bajaj Auto recorded a total of 4.03 lakh in the November 2023 sales, reflecting an overall growth of 31 per cent from November 2022.
The other major two-wheeler maker, TVS Motor Company, also reported strong numbers for this month.
TVS recorded monthly sales of 3.64 lakh in November 2023 with a growth of 31 per cent as against 2.77 lakh in the month of November 2022.
The company reported two-wheeler sales growth of 50 per cent in their domestic market with sales increasing to 2.88 lakh from 1.91 lakh last year in November.
Including exports, the company's two-wheeler sales registered a total increase of 34% to 3.52 lakh from 2.63 lakhs in the same month last year.
The company's electric vehicle segment also has done very well with 16,782 units sold in November 2023 as against sales of 10,056 units in November 2022. In October, it had sold 20,153 units of TVS iQube Electric.
However, what's a bummer this year is that the company's total exports registered sales of 75,203 units in November 2023 as against 84,134 units registered in November 2022. This is in sharp contrast to October when TVS had a growth of 6 per cent with a sale of 87,952 units in October 2023 compared to October 2022 which only had 82,816 units sold.
Four-wheelers
On the other hand, November saw somewhat tamer growth for the car and SUV makers.
Market leader Maruti Suzuki sold a total of 164,439 units compared to last year November wherein they only sold 159,044 units. The total dispatches to dealerships rose to 3.4% YoY, meaning that the growth was yet again driven by utility vehicle sales, while dispatches in the mini and compact segment continued to decline.
However, Tata Motors Limited had a more sedate performance. Its total domestic market sales for November 2023 stood at 72,647 vehicles, compared to 73,467 units during November 2022. Meanwhile, their commercial vehicles stood at 28,029 units, compared to 29,053 vehicles last year.
However, the good news is that their electric vehicles segment is stronger than last year (4,451 units sold) as they have sold 4,761 units this month with a growth of 7 per cent YoY. But overall passenger vehicle sales (four-wheeler) was down 1% at 46,143.
Hyundai Motor India also saw tepid growth, registering a total of 65,801 units sold in November 2023, which represents a 3% YoY growth. These sales include the domestic market of 49,451 units and exports of 16,350 units.
“With encouraging customer response leading to higher retail sales during the festival season, our dealer network stock is at a very optimum level of 3 weeks,” Hyundai Motor India COO Tarun Garg stated.
The only outlier was Mahindra & Mahindra, which continued to grow fast – boosted by a strong order book. They sold 39,981 SUVs, up 32% on the year.
“We continue our growth trend, backed by strong demand for our SUV portfolio,” said Veejay Nakra, President of Automotive Division, M&M. “While we saw a healthy festive season, we faced supply challenges on select parts during the month. We are keeping a close watch and taking appropriate steps to mitigate the challenges”.