The automotive industry in India is one of the largest automotive markets in the world. It was previously one of the fastest growing markets globally, but is currently experiencing flat or negative growth rates. However, as per the recent reports, India overtook Brazil to become the sixth largest passenger vehicle producer in the world (beating such old and new auto makers as Belgium, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Spain, France and Brazil).
Around 25,10,367 (Twenty five lakhs Ten thousand and Three hundred and sixty seven) cars were sold in the year 2014 (statistics is offtake numbers). You’d be surprised to know that almost fifty percent of these cars were sold in 25 cities itself (12,17,267 cars sold in top 25 out of 153 cities).
Let’s look at the city-wise sales figures –
Top Cities – Car Sales India 2014
Delhi-NCR contributes to over 10% of overall sales and makes it easily to the top slot in the Top 25 cities. Though terming Delhi-NCR as a ‘city’ would be unfair, maintaining the sales count for Delhi and NCR separately has never been easy and hence the combined statistics.
Delhi-NCR beats the second biggest city (Mumbai) comfortably and sells almost two and half times of the latter.
Out of the 4 biggest metropolitan cities (i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata & Chennai) – Kolkata and Chennai couldn’t make it in the top 4 cities for car sales. Chennai ranks 7th in the list and Kolkata takes the 9thslot.
Bangalore makes a strong presence with average sales of over 8000 cars per month and stands third in the list.
Another interesting statistics in the states which house the top 25 cities. Gujarat emerges top and has 4 cities in the list (Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara & Rajkot). Kerala & Maharashtra houses 3 cities each (Kochi, Trivandrum & Calicut for Kerala; Mumbai, Pune & Nagpur for M’rashtra).
As cities in the Indian sub-continent prosper, the sales would grow as well. But the inherent infrastructure woes, unplanned urbanization, growing accident rate have been demeaning to this growth. The planning in these cities should be much more robust to sustain more influx of cars and support the growth.