India’s top six car-makers, which control more than 80 percent of the volumes, saw a decline of nearly 7 percent in February sales even as the countdown began to exhaust Bharat Stage IV (BS-IV) stocks before the deadline.
Car and SUV makers clocked sales of 221,369 units during February as against 237,768 sold in the same month in 2019 . Dealers have been liquidating BS-IV stocks to avoid getting stuck with them post the deadline of March 31. From April 1, only BS-VI vehicles will be allowed to sell.
Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest carmaker, sold 133,702 units during the month, down 2.3 percent to as compared to 136,912 units.
Maruti Suzuki, which began switching to BS-VI technology in April 2019, is believed to have amongst the lowest stocks of BS-IV vehicles at approximately 2,000 units. More than 6.5 lakh BS-VI upgrades have been sold already by the company till date.
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Hyundai Motor India, the country’s second-largest carmaker, saw 7.2 percent decline in February volumes to 40,010 units as against 43,110 units sold in the same month in 2019.
The Korean auto brand has not divulged details of its BS-IV inventory but along with dealers the company is offering discounts of up to Rs 2.5 lakh of such unsold models including Santro, Grand i10, Elite i20, Xcent and Tucson to name a few.
Hyundai’s sister concern Kia Motors climbed to the third spot clocking sales of 15,644 units during February. The producer of the Seltos SUV launched the Carnival multi-seater during the start of February.
As Kia debuted in India in June 2019, there are no comparable sales data for February. At the same time, its rise has been remarkable. The company, in November 2019, became the fourth-largest carmaker in the country but slipped to the seventh position in December.
SUV-specialist Mahindra & Mahindra reported the biggest fall among the top six. Its supplies to dealers in February plummeted 58 percent to 10,938 units as against 26,109 units sold in the same month in 2019. In addition to demand slump and clean-up of BS-IV inventory, M&M said non-availability of parts of China to the coronavirus outbreak was also one of the reasons behind the fall in volumes.
Veejay Ram Nakra, Chief of Sales and Marketing – Automotive Division, said, “The ramp-down of BS IV vehicle production has been in line with our plan for February. However, because of the unforeseeable challenges on the parts-supply from China, our BS VI ramp-up has been affected. This has resulted in a high de-growth in our billing volume for February and our dealer inventory is, now, under 10 days. Going into March, we anticipate the challenge on parts-supply to continue for another few weeks, before we get back to normalcy.”
Mumbai-based Tata Motors reported 31 percent decline in volumes during February to 12,430 units as against 18,110 units sold in the same month last year. The maker of Harrier SUV was one of the last manufacturers to switch to BS-VI with the launch of Tiago, Nexon and Tigor in February.
Mayank Pareek, President – Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Tata Motors, said, “The outbreak of COVID-19 in China and a recent fire incident at one of our strategic vendors affected the vehicle production and wholesale volume. Our BS-IV stock is well below the targeted level and we are well placed for the transition.”
Honda Cars India said it had dispatched 7269 units of BS-VI models in February that included petrol variants of Amaze, City, Civic and CR-V. This marked a fall of 46 percent compared to 13527 units sold in February last year. Deliveries of the diesel Amaze will begin in March.
Rajesh Goel, Senior Vice President and Director – Marketing and Sales, Honda Cars India, said, “Our dispatches were limited and in line with our plan of total supply availability for the month. We are determined to enhance the supplies with subsequent introduction of BS-6 versions of other models. Since we have been supplying only BS-6 cars from January onwards and dealers were aggressively liquidating their BS-4 stock, our channel is left with negligible stock of BS-4 cars as of February-end.”
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