Nano picking up on retail sales on positive sentiment, festive discounts

Though the wholesale numbers of Tata's small car Nano are declining, its sales at retail levels are picking up with dealers in different parts of the country cashing in on reduced down payment scheme introduced by the company ahead of the festival season.

According to dealers while, consumer confidence on the car had slowly grown stronger and conversion rate of enquiries had risen to as much as 35 per cent in certain areas, an attractive discount of up to Rs20,000 had also helped in bringing customers to showrooms.

Though retail sales are not disclosed by the company, its retail sales numbers, industry sources say had been on the rise since August.

Nano's retail sales, which were at 3,548 units in July, rose to 6,451 in August and 9,208 in September this year.

This is against the 17 per cent fall in the cumulative wholesale numbers in the April-August period this fiscal, at 26,441 units as against 31,882 units over the same period a year-ago.

Interestingly, dealers from Bangalore report that a lot of Nano sales come from women who seem to be increasingly taking to the compact car.

Analysts say the festival season had brought some respite to car makers, with the country's 10 leading manufacturers together posting 0.93 per cent decline, selling 203,678 units last month as against 205,591 units sold during the corresponding period last year.

They add, the numbers were significant as they suggest a revival in auto sales that had dropped sharply in the last two months burdened by rising interest rates and increasing fuel prices. After posting phenomenal growth rates of around 30 per cent in the last financial year, passenger vehicles sales were down 9 per cent. They were down by  6  per cent in July and August this year.

The total sales numbers would have been much better say analysts but for the over-one-month labour trouble in Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant which hit normal sales.

The company's sells on an average over 90,000 cars in the domestic market every month when the facility is under normal operation. Its September sales were much lower at 78,816 cars, a fall of 17.2 per cent over last year depressing the overall car sales numbers of the industry, even while manufacturers such as Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL), Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, General Motors and Toyota Kirloskar increased volumes.