How were the auto sales numbers for December 2021 for big players like Maruti, Hyundai, Tata Motors and M&M?

The broad expectation was that the month of December would continue to see negative growth and that was the case with the two leaders viz. Maruti and Hyundai. However, the overall numbers were better than expected as other auto players like Tata Motors, M&M and even Toyota reported solid auto sales numbers. Remember, these are wholesale dispatch numbers and not the retail sales numbers at the dealer end.

However, there are some very interesting trends that emerged in Dec-21. Firstly, Tata Motors became the second largest in terms of auto sales as Hyundai dropped to third position. Also, EV sales at 5,592 units was 5.6% of the total sales. Tata Motors alone accounted for 50% of the EV sales showing clearly that the EV sales were driving the surge in volume numbers at Tata Motors. This should allow them to consolidate their position.

Good old leaders in the auto segment were under pressure. For example Maruti saw Dec-21 sales drop by -12.6% to 123,016 units while Hyundai reported a bigger de-growth of -31.8% to 32,312 units in Dec-21. However, Tata Motors reported 50% growth in sales at 35,299 units for passenger vehicles. Among other growth drivers, M&M saw 10% growth at 17,722 units and Toyota sales were up 45% at 10,832 units. TAMO was largely driven by EVs.

In 2-wheelers, while Hero Moto saw -11.7% fall in sales in Dec-21 to 374,485 units the fall was muted at -4.2% for TVS Motors and just -1% for Bajaj Auto. While Bajaj Auto had flat sales in domestic market, its export numbers, which are always larger than domestic sales, has normally been the saving grace and helped prop its sales higher. The pressure of weak rural markets has led to compression of rural demand and erratic monsoons were an issue.

In what could be a positive indication, most of the commercial vehicles (CV) manufacturers reported growth in numbers. This included Tata Motors, M&M, Bajaj Auto, TVS and VECV. The fall in sales at -3% was negligible in the case of Ashok Leyland. The one segment that came under real pressure was tractors with M&M reporting -21% fall in sales and Escorts reporting -43.5% fall in sales. It was an extension of the rural weakness argument.