As the pressure of demonetisation eased for the auto sector, domestic passenger car sales rose 9 percent in February to 2,55,359 units from 2,34,244 units sold in the same month last year.
However, domestic two-wheeler sales contracted marginally to 13,62,045 units from 13,62,177 units in the year-ago period, according to data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Friday.
Motorcycle sales fell 3.1 percent while scooter despatches were up 3.7 percent from the year-ago period. Total domestic commercial vehicle sales rose 7.3 percent in February to 66,939 units on a year-on-year basis.
In April-February 2017, overall automobile exports declined by 5.9 percent. While passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles exports registered a growth of 16.3 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively, exports of three wheelers and two wheelers declined 33.4 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively, during the period.
The negative effects of demonetisation on vehicle sales seem to be wearing off, SIAM said, adding that only the two-wheeler segment, particularly motorcycles, were still reeling under the slowdown due to the rural economy still being cash strapped.
March is likely to witness some pre-buying in the commercial vehicle segment ahead of implementation of the new emission norms from April 1, SIAM Director General Vishnu Mathur said.
The issue of implementation of the Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) Emission Norms emission norms came up for debate recently when Bajaj Auto Ltd.'s Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj had argued that the vehicle registration date, and not the manufacturing date, should be taken into consideration while enforcing the norms. There could be ambiguity on the manufacturing date of a vehicle, he had said.
The SIAM director general told BloombergQuint it was the manufacturing date of a vehicle that was taken into consideration while enforcing such norms. He cited implementation of BS-II and BS-III norms to support his argument.
Most automobile manufacturers agreed to adhere to the new norms, Mathur said, adding that none sought any extension of the date of implementation.
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