Automobile sales in the month of November are expected to be a mixed bag. Passenger vehicles (PV) may have registered a marginal growth led by extended deliveries post festive season, while two-wheeler retail sales may remain weak as it failed to sustain the recovery, analysts said.
“Two-wheeler channel partners indicate significant decline in demand post festive. Retails in urban market declined by 10-15 percent YoY (on a high base) while it remained flat to negative in rural markets,” brokerage firm Prabhudas Lilladher said in a report.
Extended monsoons adversely impacting the crops and deferred purchases in the hope of hefty discounting before BS-VI implementation are triggering postponement in buying decisions, it added.
Given the upcoming BS-VI emission norms, brokerages do not expect companies to increase inventory materially. Companies have started launching BS-6 models with prices around 13-15 percent higher than existing models.
“This could be a key headwind for demand into FY21F and poses downside risk to our expectation of around 7 percent decline in FY20F (implies 8 percent YoY growth in 5MFY20F) and flat growth in FY21F,” Nomura said.
PV retail sales is likely to be better and grow around 1 percent YoY in the November month as it benefited from discounts and extended deliveries post the festive season which ended in Oct.
Meanwhile, Commercial Vehicle (CV) demand continued to remain under pressure on account of slow pace of industrial activities, extended rain delaying infrastructure projects and higher operating costs.
“MHCV volume decline in Nov-19F is likely to remain high at -44 percent YoY due to weak demand and inventory clearance. However, our industry interactions lead us to believe that retail sales have been higher than wholesale volumes and inventory stands at around a month. We think that reported volumes at present are lower than replacement demand,” Nomura added.
The global brokerage expects a strong recovery in H2FY21 on this base as an investment-led recovery occurs.
For tractors, Nomura expects around 4 percent decline in volumes for Mahindra & Mahindra.
“PV and two-wheeler segments showed improvement in retail demand in the festive period but most OEMs remain uncertain on improvement sustainability given a weak economy and upcoming BS6 emission norms. Inventories have moderated, especially in 2Ws where channel stocks were highest,” CLSA report said.
Market analyst Avinash Gorakshakar believes the automobile sales during November will see degrowth of 8-10 percent during the ongoing quarter.
“Automobile companies are cutting their production consistently. This means that consumer demand has still not picked up. Going ahead, we can see recovery in January-March quarter,” Gorakshakar said.
Sluggish domestic economic growth and higher cost of ownership propelled by BS-VI emission norms will lead to continued slowdown in the Indian auto sector.
Maruti Suzuki auto sales in November may fall 4 percent YoY at 1.47 lakh units while that of Ashok Leyland may decline 26 percent to about 9,666 units.
Hero Motocorp sales are expected to be down by about 11.5 percent at 5.4 lakh units and Bajaj Auto sales are seen down about 2.4 percent at 3.96 lakh units. TVS Motor Company sales are likely to decrease by 9 percent YoY to 2.9 lakh units.
Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Nov sales would come in at about 66,500 units. Escorts sales are expected to be down about nearly 11 percent at 7,150 units.