As carmakers embrace GST, passenger vehicle sales drop 11% in June

The domestic car sales in India dropped by 11.21 percent in June even as carmakers braced themselves to realign their stocks following the shift to Goods and Services Tax (GST), a new tax regime that came into effect on July 1, 2017.

Analysing the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the domestic passenger car sale witnessed a drop of 11.24 percent at 136,895 as compared to 154,237 units sold in June 2016. The sales of utility vehicles and sales of vans also plunged by 11.25 percent clocking 49,547 units, and 10.72 percent to 11,957 units during the period. However, the sales of commercial vehicles grew marginally by 1.4 percent to 56,890 units in June 2017.

Coming to passenger vehicles, the sales stood at 1, 98,399 units in June 2017 as against 2, 23,454 sold during the corresponding period in 2016. In the two-wheeler segment, sales in the month went up by 4 percent to 1,52,7049 units.

In June, the country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported muted growth in domestic sales at 93,263 units last month in comparison to 92,133 cars sold in June last year. Automakers like Toyota and Hyundai, on the other hand, reported fall in domestic sales in the last month with uncertainties surrounding the implementation of GST taking a toll on the sales figures.

Toyota sold 1,973 units in June 2017 and exports stood at 1,655, in comparison to 13,502 units sold in the domestic market in June 2016 and exports of 1,352 units. However, Honda Cars India reported domestic sales of 12,804 units in June against 11,407 units in the corresponding month last year, registering a growth of 12.2 percent.