Indians Are Not Buying Cars in 2019, and Dealers Are Miffed

The past few quarters have been low for the Indian car sector, which has directly left dealers in a spot as well.

Car sales in India have suffered a massive drop in the first quarter of 2019.

(Photo: The Quint/Erum Gour)

(Video editor: Puneet Bhatia, Cameraperson: Shiv Kumar Maurya)

India is currently the fourth largest car market in the world behind the likes of China, US and Japan. Being a seller's market, it has been always boasted high sales numbers since 2016.

However, the first few quarters of 2019 have been pretty disappointing.

A thriving car market is seeing a major slump.

Get this, according to SIAM ( Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers) in April last year, almost 2,00,183 vehicles were sold in India and that figure this year in April is down to 1,60,279. That is a drop of 15.93 percent in the overall sales.

Nobody has a clear answer as to why this slow-down is happening.

We paid a visit to dealerships in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai and landed at brands like Maruti, Mahindra, Ford and even Tata. None of the dealership owners agreed to comment on the matter, however off the record they did say that the low purchasing power of consumer was one of the the prime reason.

Also, the crowd visible at dealerships these days, are those who have already pre-booked their cars.

Apart from an economic slowdown there are other reasons causing a slump in the automotive industry.

Rising fuel prices have driven potential car buyers into a dilemma whether to even consider investing in a car. Not only that, there has been a hike in third party insurance which also adds up to the cost.

Also with ever growing traffic congestion on the road, people seem to prefer cabs like Uber and Ola as a more convenient option.

This has resulted in accumulation of unsold inventory with the manufacturers. This can spell bad news for people seeking jobs in this sector. According to an Economic Times report, over 300 dealerships shut shop in 2019 and an estimated 3,000 people lost their jobs due to incurring losses.

Another reason is the arrival of new safety norms and improved models not to mention that all of the cars have to meet BS VI emission standards by April 2020. This affects the final buying decision of the consumer as they would prefer to wait and see how things unfold.

Dealerships and car makers have been trying their best to boost car sales by offering attractive discounts and offers on certain models but nothing seems to be luring customers as of now.

Turns out the Indian market isn’t the only one suffering a low. Car sales in China have also fallen by 15 percent and other global market are also expected to take a hit in the days to come according to Germany’s Center for Automotive Research (CAR) report. Reasons being, emission norms and economic slowdown.

It is expected that things will get better around the festive season near October-November though it's still early days to be that hopeful.