COVID-19's third wave, as well as supply side constraints, impacted India's domestic auto sector sales in January 2022 on a year-on-year basis. The sector's current off-take of passenger cars, two-and-three wheelers were far behind even the 2020 sales levels, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said.
In terms of passenger vehicles (PVs), challenges pertaining to electronic components' availability pulled sales lower on a YoY basis in January. The shortage has extended waiting periods and escalated prices.
The industry was able to produce only 158,891 units of passenger cars in January 2022 from 173,463 units made in the corresponding period of the previous year. The data furnished by the SIAM does not include sales figures from some key players such as Tata Motors.
Sales of passenger vehicles fell to 254,287 units in January as compared to 276,554 units sold during the corresponding month of 2021.
Segment-wise, a total of 126,693 passenger cars were sold in the domestic market in January, down from 153,244 units sold in the like period of 2021.
The sales of other sub-categories such as utility vehicles (UV) grew whereas vans' de-grew on a year-on-year basis. As per the data, UV sales rose to 116,962 units from 111,494 units, on the other hand, the off-take of vans declined to 10,632 units from 11,816 units in the year-ago period.
Besides, two-wheelers' sales were lower in January 2022 at 1,128,293 units from 1,429,928 units sold in the same month of 2021.
Furthermore, three-wheelers' sales during the month under review declined to 24,091 units from 26,794 units sold during January 2021.
Overall, the domestic automobile sectors' off-take representing the sales of passenger vehicles, two-wheelers, three-wheelers and quadricycles fell to 1,406,672 units from 1,733,276 units sold during the same period of last year.
In addition, the data showed that exports were down on a YoY basis.
The overall exports, including PVs, two and three-wheelers and quadricycles fell to 454,953 units from 463,077 units during the same period of last year.
"Sales in the month of January 2022 again declined compared to January 2021, due to both Omicron related concerns and semiconductor shortages. There is clearly a demand issue for Two-Wheelers due to lower rural off-take of entry level models," said SIAM Director General Rajesh Menon.
"Three-wheelers continue to be severely affected due to lower sales. On the other hand, passenger vehicle segment is unable to meet the market demand due to supply side challenges resulting in sales in January 2022 being even lower than January 2021."