Healthy auto sales in August helped by softening of interest rates

August has been a healthy month for Indian automakers. Sales have seen a robust rise, compared to performance in the earlier month, and the year-ago period.

Analysts said that auto numbers have been a lot better in August, than we have been witnessing in the past few months. Overall, what has helped the numbers is that interest rates have come off in certain segments.

For example-the commercial vehicle, or CV, segment has seen interest rates come off by 200-250 basis points. Even the passenger vehicle segment has seen interest rates come off by 100-150 basis points. There has been no decline in the interest rates for the two-wheeler segments. Analysts expect some kind of a decrease.

Overall, the outlook for September is very bullish. Dealers are witnessing a lot of buoyancy in the bookings in September, when the festive season will set in.

Bajaj Auto had subdued numbers, with just about 7 per cent decline on their bike volumes. It is going through some change in the company and is planning the launch of its new bike Exceed. The numbers have been on expected lines and come September, they are expected to be looking more robust.

Maruti has exceptional numbers and there has been a growth of 27 per cent on overall volumes on a year-on-year basis. What has helped Maruti is the discount the company has given on almost all models. Apart from that, it has also come out with a lot of schemes to push its volumes.

There have been an exceptional set of numbers from Hero Honda and it seems to have bumped the sluggishness off the two-wheelers segment. Overall, the sales have grown by 12 per cent on a year-on-year basis. And what is helping Hero Honda is a very strong product portfolio, with new launches doing really well for the company.

M&M has seen a pretty robust growth, of 34 per cent on its domestic sales. However, it has been slower than the previous months. We need to keep in mind that it is on a much higher base. The UV segment saw 20 per cent growth, slower than the previous months, but again on a higher base.

There has been a 600 plus unit drop on a month-on-month basis for the Logan because the company is facing capacity constraint on the supply side. We need to watch out whether the company can overcome this constraint patch and capitalize on the Logan.

Overall, the automotive sales are doing very well. There has been a 4 per cent growth on the domestic tractor sales. However, this is on a lower base. So, we cannot really say that it has come out of this sluggish trend in the tractor segment.