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2019 was one of the most dramatic year in the Indian Automotive Industry. The Industry registered a double digit degrowth for the first time in past 20 years! Indian Automotive Industry was the talking point of the entire world and had recently overtook Germany as the fourth largest market in the world. However; the success story has taken a beating due to the fumbling economy and several governmental hurdles like BS6 transition, excessively high taxes and the erstwhile after-effect of GST/Demonetization. Let’s see how the Indian Auto Industry YoY growth pattern varied in past 20 years –
Source: Jato
As usual; new models were the life savers for their respective OEMs in 2019! While Kia & MG started off with a bang; Renault was the only OEM to register a positive YoY growth in 2019 owing the success of the new launched MPV Triber. Also Hyundai was able to negate the downfall to a certain extent due to the Sub-4m Compact SUV Venue. A look at how the OEMs fared in 2019 –
The Market Leader Maruti Suzuki led the downfall with -14.2% YoY degrowth. As per the famous adage – ‘When Maruti sneezes; the entire Auto Industry catches cold’; which is true to a greater extent. Maruti had no major new model launches in 2019 and also the announcement to exit diesel with BS6 transition led to a lot of customers away from the brand. Thankfully; Maruti was able to retain >50% Market Share even though it lost 1.1% Market Share in 2019.
Maruti’s loss was clearly Hyundai’s gain. Venue’s timing wouldn’t have been better and the model helped the Korean Major to gain some ground against Maruti.
Mahindra too had a strong performance backed by new launches (Marazzo & XUV300). However; both the New Models has lost its sheen pretty quick and 2020 shall be a deciding year for M&M as the OEMs dependency on Diesel portfolio is extremely high.
Renault had a dream year after a lot of struggle in the past 2 years. Triber has started off really well for the brand and hope Renault is able to SUSTAIN the sales run.
Kia & MG stepped foot in the Indian subcontinent at a very challenging time. Their launch timing was questioned by all critics and am sure both the OEMs would’ve been extremely anxious themselves. However; both Kia & MG had their share of success and it proves the potential of the Indian market and its consumer. We Indians are extremely value conscious and wouldn’t think twice before buying a product that ticks all the right chords!
Market Share Graph –
