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The piercing screeching noise coming late last year from Asia was the sound of India’s previously speeding a car sales bandwagon going into reverse. The story, an all too sobering tale of our times, could hardly be worse
2014 began as last year ended.
January car sales fell 7.6 per cent to 160,289 units, which marks the 14th fall in the past 15 months.
A trend which, AID compiled figures show, augured poorly for Tata’s automotive arm in particular, whose passenger car sales at home have more than halved in the past year.
-7.6%
January new car sales in India compared to same month last year
After displaying virtually limitless potential to rise, a near decade of meteoric car sales expansion ground to a sudden halt last year, marking the first dip in annual sales since 2004.
After climaxing at a new historic high of 2.01 million in 2012, last year’s car sales in India took a near 10 per cent tumble to 1.82 million passenger cars.
Alarmingly for the autoindustry, and western carmakers like Volkswagen in particular, which invested heavily in India, of late new car demand clearly failed to take off on the scale many in the industry predicted.
One autoindustry insider who spoke anonymously, told AID, “with hindsight, it now seems clear that most western carmakers were far too optimistic about India’s short to medium car sales potential, thus leaving many carmakers with the cash-draining burden of vast surplus
capacity”...more
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DATA
AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS WITH THIS ARTICLE:
INDIA
new CAR sales:
by manufacturer and marque
DECEMBER 2013 v DECEMBER 2012
FULL YEAR 2013 v FULL YEAR 2012
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