Maruti Suzuki likely to post upbeat July car sales, says Nirmal Bang

Automobile companies Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL), Hero Motocorp and Ashok Leyland are expected to report good growth in July volume sales while others are likely to witness a fall. The data will be interesting as it will be the first month after the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).

In June, domestic car sales dropped 11.2 percent despite companies luring buyers with discounts. Therefore, on a sequential basis, the July growth rate is likely to be high for some companies.

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An estimate by brokerage Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities (NBIE) on Monday said MSIL is likely to post double-digit growth (~14 percent) in domestic car sales on a year-on-year (YoY) basis while Mahindra and Tata Motors could report a fall in their passenger vehicle sales.  

"We expect good growth in car and two-wheeler segments. July 2017 retail sales are expected to be weak because of strong sales witnessed in the previous month, but despite this we expect decent sales growth in case of two-wheelers and passenger vehicles as they face inventory build-up ahead of the festive season," Gaurant Dadwal and Vivek Sarin, research analysts at NBIE said in a note.

The biggest spike is expected in volume sales for MSIL on a sequential basis, though the YoY growth is likely to be modest, others could end up a fall. "In the car segment, we expect MSIL to report 14 percent YoY growth in sales, but witness a sharp MoM growth of 47 percent as the company went for plant shut down in June 2017. For Mahindra & Mahindra, we expect its automobile division's sales to decline 4 percent YoY," they wrote in their note.

Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland are expected to post around 10 percent growth in their commercial vehicle (CV) sales while passenger vehicle volumes could witness a decline for Tata Motors.

In the case of two-wheelers, Hero Motocorp and TVS Motor Company are likely to report around nine percent growth while Bajaj Auto could end up with a flattish trend, according to the analysts.

At around 12.40 pm, shares of MSIL were trading 1.23 percent higher at Rs 7,715.80 apiece, Tata Motors was up 0.29 percent higher at Rs 447.60, Ashok Leyland was almost flat at Rs 109.40 and Hero Motocorp was up 0.23 percent higher at Rs 3,640.