The slowdown in every segment of auto industry - with sales in India hitting the rock bottom for the last nine months - is unlikely to see a reversal anytime soon. The passenger vehicles (PV) sales recorded the steepest decline of 30.98 per in July 2019. Passenger cars, which account for almost 66 per cent of the PV segment were down by 28.6 per cent selling 172,336 units as compared to 241,317 units sold in July 2018.

At an all-India level, passenger car sales dropped 22.95 per cent. While the state-wise total sales of companies may not add up to total domestic sales, the state-wise quarterly data from CMIE database on auto sales reveals that 11 states and union territories have witnessed a year-on-year (y-o-y) decline in passenger car sales over the four quarters.

Sales of passenger car in Kerala dropped the most by 38.12 per cent in the June quarter closely followed by Chandigarh with a fall of 35.95 per cent and Odisha registering a fall of 33.96 per cent. The state of Kerala has the fifth highest share of 7.03 per cent in passenger cars sales while Chandigarh and Odisha had a share of 0.8 per cent and 1.48 per cent, respectively, in the June quarter of 2019/20. Close to 16 states and union territories have registered a y-o-y decline of more than 20 per cent in passenger car sales in Q1 of 2019/20.     

While the auto companies are battling a slowdown in sales across all parts of the country, few north-eastern states have bucked the trend of a declining industry-these include Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim along with Jammu and Kashmir. These five states contribute 4.2 per cent to the total passenger car sales of the country. The four north-eastern states, which had a skimpy share of less than one per cent individually, have not been bitten by the slowdown bug in this space for quite some time, especially, Mizoram which never saw a fall (on a y-o-y basis) in the passenger car sales (data was available from June 2016 quarter). On the other hand, auto companies have not seen a decline in their car sales for at least past six quarters in Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim. Moreover, in Sikkim, sales of passenger cars jumped from 491 units in June 2018 to 1,923 units in June 2019. In Jammu & Kashmir, sales improved from 4.43 per cent in the March quarter of 2018-19 to 8.84 per cent in the June quarter of FY19.