Automobile sales usually rise post- elections, said Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India.
General elections and increased regulation regarding safety and emission have affected vehicle sales, said R C Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki. "Evidence of the past two general elections show that in the year before the elections, sales slowdown considerably. The moment the elections are over, sales go up, in 2008-09 they went up 20 percent and in 2014-15 they went up by 12 percent. Whether that is going to get repeated this year or not is a big question," he said.
Bhargava said they have never seen a successive decline in sales for 2-3 years, so expect a pickup in sales going forward. He also noted that India is not a country where car penetration is very high.
This year there has been additional input for the customers in the form of regulations, and they will continue coming in for the next few months relating to safety and emissions, he said, adding that measuring the impact of all this on sales is difficult.
"As manufacturers, we have to be very flexible in our plans to be able to adjust to what customer behaviour comes up in next few months," he said. The cut in production was fundamentally done to ensure inventory management, he added.
He also clarified that he was not aware of higher dealer commissions being paid in March etc., adding that their car dealers have still sold 5-6 percent more cars than last year overall.
Source: CNBC-TV18
