BENGALURU (Reuters) – The festive and wedding season in India helped boost the country’s total retail vehicles sales by 26% in November from a year ago, according to data from industry body Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA).
Three-wheelers sales notched the biggest jump in November, FADA data showed, with sales surging 80%, followed by tractor sales, which grew 56.8%.
Sales of commercial vehicles rose 32.8%, while the smallest gains were in two-wheelers and passenger vehicles, at 23.6% and 21.3%, respectively.
Auto sales are among the key indicators to assess India’s private consumption as it has a weightage of more than 50% in calculating economic growth.
FADA tallies retail sales from dealers to buyers, sourcing data along with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH). Data on November’s vehicle supply from manufacturers to dealers is expected from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) later this month.
Two-wheeler sales actually dropped by a marginal 0.9% from the pre-COVID levels of November 2019, while sales rose in all other categories, including 5.1% for passenger vehicles. Total retail vehicle sales grew by 1.5% versus November 2019.
Two-wheelers and passenger vehicles generally constitute a big chunk of the sales volume.
Earlier this month, market leader Maruti Suzuki posted a 14.3% jump in sales for November, while Tata Motors, TVS Motor Co and Bajaj Auto each reported a 21.4%, 1.6%, and 19.2% jump.
(Reporting by Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
