- india’s covid-19 lockdown has brought automotive sales in that country to a complete standstill with a 100 percent year-over-year drop.
- in april 2019, 247,541 passenger vehicles and 68,680 commercial vehicles were sold in the country.
- the lockdown has been extended to may 17 and will play havoc on an industry that was already suffering dwindling sales.
if you think things are bad for automakers in the united states, automakers serving the population of india would like to have a word with you. the country went on a coronavirus-related lockdown on march 25, which brought a stop to all manufacturing and selling of vehicles. the result is that the country ended april with zero sales of any new cars.
according to the society of indian automobile manufacturers (siam), the automotive industry is losing $306 million per day. the automakers include mahindra & mahindra, maruti suzuki, hyundai, mg motor, and toyota kirloskar. the picture was a bit rosier in april of 2019 when the industry sold 247,541 passenger vehicles, 68,680 commercial vehicles, and 1,684,650 two and three-wheeled vehicles.
quartz india reports that vehicle sales in the country were already on a downward path. in march, year-over-year domestic maruti suzuki sales dropped 47.9 percent, while mahindra & mahindra sales dropped 90 percent.
the lockdown has been extended to may 17 and will further depress an already tough situation for automakers. the industry has written a letter to the home secretary at the ministry of home affairs asking for the automative sector to be allowed to open up.