Domestic Cars sales fell 12.3% in May

It has been quite sometime now that the Indian auto industry is facing a slowdown, and the same scenario is also visible in May, 2013 as well. According to the SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers), the car sales in India fell an annual 12.3 per cent in May. This has been the seventh consecutive month, the car sales fell as weak buyers sentiment in a slowing economy continued to weigh on demand. The auto manufacturers sold 143,216 units in India last month as against 1,63,222 units sold in the same month of 2012, as per SIAM data.

Despite high discounts and exchange bonus, the carmakers failed to lure buyers as the slowing economy dragged down the demands for the vehicles. SIAM director-general Vishnu Mathur said, "This is a grave sign for the automobile industry as it's the longest stretch of consecutive car sales decline witnessed ever. Even during the 2008-09 downturn, car sales dipped for few months and recovered back strongly. These are worrying trends for the Indian automobile industry".

If this slowdown continues for the next few months, we could see job losses to occur as the domestic market has now seen a regular cut down of cars production by various companies. Recently, the India's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India has closed its production unit for one day and had announced closure all its five plants for eight days in June. India's leading companies have registered a negative or flat growth in domestic sales, as Maruti Suzuki's domestic sales declined 8.25 per cent to 66,342 units. While the country's second largest car manufacturer, Hyundai India posted a small growth of 0.35 per cent to 32,052 units and Tata Motors witnessed a negative growth of 49 per cent to 8,927 units over the last year.