With less than three months before US car-major General Motors (GM) drives out of India, it has cleared inventory.
Dealers, however, are sitting on an unsold inventory of around 800-1,000 vehicles. They are betting on the festive season for a bailout.
In May, GM announced that it would stop selling cars in the domestic market by December 2017 and would use its local manufacturing base at Talegaon near Pune to focus on export markets. There were around 96 dealers then who were running 120 sales outlets across India.
At present, around 20 dealers have an inventory of 800-1,000 cars, said a source. One has around 120 cars at his sales outlet, the source added.
“The sales team at GM has already been phased out. The dealers are now left with their own staff. Most of the dealerships have shut down and only the service outlets are running,” said an industry source.
Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (Siam) August data shows the automaker sold two Beat hatchbacks, 11 Cruze sedans, and two Taveras in the month.
In fact, it sold more Cruze sedans in FY18 than in the April-August period of FY17, while it produced none this fiscal year. It has sold 417 sedans in FY18 far, as compared to 389 units, a year ago.
Tavera production, too, has stopped with the closure of the Halol plant. GM sold more Taveras in FY18 (1,562 units) than it produced (1,025 units), indicating inventory clearance.
The company sold 2,499 units in the domestic market in FY18, down 75 per cent year-on-year, while its exports grew 53.6 per cent during the same period.