Domestic car sales zoom 14% in August

New Delhi: Low base along with initial upsurge in demand due to the festive season boosted domestic passenger vehicles' sales in August on a year-on-year basis. This is the first time since October 2019, that passenger vehicles' sales stood in the positive territory on a YoY basis.

According to industry data released on Friday, a total of 2,15,916 passenger vehicles were sold in the domestic market, representing a rise of 14.16 per cent from 1,89,129 units off-take during the like period of 2019.

Similarly, the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed a sequential growth in sales during August. In July, the domestic passenger vehicles' sales had declined by 3.86 per cent to 1,82,779 units from 1,90,115 units sold during the corresponding month of the previous year.

Besides, the data showed that car sales in the country rose by 14.13 per cent to 1,24,715 units in August, compared with 1,09,277 units during the year-ago period.

As per SIAM, the data does not include sales figures from some key players such as Tata Motors. In terms of utility vehicles, sales grew by 15.54 per cent to 81,842, whereas vans' offtake went down by 3.82 per cent to 9,359 units against the same month a year ago.

"After a period of lull owing to the Covid-19 imposed lockdowns, the month of August 2020 has witnessed improvement in the sales figures of two-wheelers and passenger vehicles," said SIAM Director General Rajesh Menon.