Attractive Discounts Aid Retails During Festive Season: Report

Aided by attractive discounts and festive cheer, the 2024 festive period saw healthy growth in retails across the consumer segments. There was a robust 14 per cent growth in two-wheeler retail sales during the season, according to a report by Icra. Dealers reported a significant increase in footfalls and bookings, with enquiries and sales conversions being on the positive side.

Driven by competitive financing rates and discounts, retail sales of passenger vehicles during the festive season grew at a moderate pace of around 6 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to around 6.5 lakh units. As per the report, despite good retail sales (YoY growth of around 6 per cent in April to October FFY25, partially on account of the early festive season), the high inventory levels for the industry curtailed wholesale volume growth.

The report added that key demand drivers for the two-wheeler industry are expected to remain favourable which will help in driving growth over the near term. The report further highlighted that healthy monsoon precipitation has aided improvement in demand and government and private capital expenditure is going to support economic growth or disposable income as the trends for rural demand and economic outlook remain favourable.

“The recently-concluded festive season (3 October 2024 to 13 November 2024) brought cheer to the automotive industry, with robust retails across most segments (barring commercial vehicles), representing a moderate-to-healthy growth on a YoY basis. The sentiments since the onset of the festive period (during Navratri) were strong and the demand was boosted further with a healthy pick-up during Diwali,” as stated in the report.

Led by steady replacement demand and an improvement in rural demand on the back of a healthy monsoon precipitation, Icra has revised the outlook for the wholesale volume growth for the industry to 11 to 14 per cent in FY25.