NEW DELHI: On the back of stellar popularity for sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and an uptick in rural demand, India’s passenger vehicle (PV) industry registered cumulative sales of 42.3 lakh units in FY24 as against 38.9 lakh units sold in FY23, up 8.7% year-on-year.
This is the highest-ever sale achieved by the industry as well as by many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in a single fiscal.
“This is the first time the PV industry has crossed the 4 million mark. This also makes India the third largest passenger vehiclemarket in the world, overtaking Japan and we did overtake Germany a year back,” said Shashank Srivastava, Executive Committee Member of Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) on Monday.
MSIL, the country’s largest carmaker, sold 1,759,881 units of PV in the domestic market and its total sales (including exports, sales to OEMs and LCV sales) breached the 2 million mark for the first time in FY24.
Srivastava noted that the construct of the market is clearly in favour of SUVs as this segment’s total contribution in FY24 sales was 50.4%, a jump from 43% last fiscal. The SUV segment grew by 28% in FY24 while the hatchbacks declined by 12%. He informed that MSIL’s market share in the SUV segment increased from about 11% in FY23 to 21% in FY24.
However, it was below MSIL’s previous estimate of 25% Tarun Garg, chief operating officer of Hyundai Motor India (HMIL), said that SUV penetration in Hyundai’s PV sales reached to highest level of 63% in FY24 as against 53% in FY23. Hyundai’s domestic sales stood at 614,721 units in FY24, up 8.3% YoY.
Garg added that it will be difficult for the industry to repeat the high growth of FY24 as the industry is sitting on a very high base.
On the uptick in rural demand, Srivastava said that sales here grew by 11% while the urban growth was 7%. He noted that the industry estimates about 33-35% of sales may have come from rural India but for MSIL it is slightly higher at around 45%.
According to Srivastava, factors contributing to this are infrastructure development, normal monsoon and growth in per capita rural income.
Meanwhile, Mahindra & Mahindra wrapped up FY24 with its best-ever sales at 459,877 units, an increase of 28% YoY. Tata Motors sold 570,955 passenger vehicles in FY24.