- Car makers are offering massive discounts in the current vehicles – some going over ₹1 lakh with discounts!
Maruti Suzuki is offering ₹1,15,000 total discount on Ciaz.- With demand being stable, carmakers are also witnessing decreasing inventory days in the passenger vehicles segment.
That has reflected in deeper discounts towards the later part of the year. But that has not helped the declining sentiment in the midst of a general slowdown and lower consumer confidence.
“High discounts (even higher than festive schemes in some cases) and cost increase from January have led to the pickup in demand. However, underlying demand remains weak with over two-thirds of dealers seeing single digit decline or a flat annual sales volume,” said a Nirmal Bang survey report.
As new prices will kick in from January and we get closer to the ban of sale of BSIV vehicles in April 2020, cars are going at a discount anywhere between ₹1 to 1.7 lakh.
Though demand fails to grow, carmakers are witnessing decreasing inventory days in the passenger vehicles segment. Inventory days are the number of days goods stay in the factory before being sold. From a high of 50 days in February, inventory levels have come down to 25-30 in the past few months.
Added to that, almost every carmaker has taken production holidays and removed temporary staff to match the lacklustre sales.