Automobile Lobby Group SIAM Shows 14 Per Cent Dip In Vehicle Sales While Registration Data Records 5 Per Cent Fall

While the automobile lobby group SIAM shows a decline of 14 per cent in wholesale domestic sales of the vehicles, the vehicle registration data for April-July shows a decline of only 5 per cent as compared to the last year, reports Times of India.

The big difference has raised speculations that dealers might be quickly clearing out old stock while cutting down on the intake of fresh stock.

The data captured by government’s ‘Vahan’ platform shows that during this April-July period, there were about 70.3 lakh new vehicle registrations against last year’s 73.8 lakh. On the other hand, SIAM data shows the total domestic sales of vehicles during April-July this year was nearly 79.11 lakh as compared to 91.88 lakh in 2018.

The reason behind the steep slowdown in sales, some believe, is that the buyers might be delaying their purchase to April 2020 when the new BS-VI norms kick in. The Supreme Court has ordered that no new vehicle without BS-VI compliance can be manufactured or registered from 1 April 2020.

While some believe the slowdown is temporary and not as big as the industry body is reporting, the SIAM has rejected the above reasoning.

SIAM director general Vishnu Mathur said that the registration data from Vahan cannot be compared with their vehicle sales data, as former is like the output, while latter is the input.

“Why will people defer buying vehicles, which will be more expensive once BS VI norms kick in? We never saw this when we shifted from BS-I to BS-II, then BS-II to BS-III and from BS-III to BS-IV,” he said.