The Indian automobile industry is likely to see a downward revision of the passenger car sales growth forecast for 2011-12 for the third time this fiscal in January due to sluggish demand over the last few months.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the passenger car segment may not even see single-digit growth in the current fiscal.
"During the Auto Expo next month, we are going to revise our sales projections for the fiscal... I feel the passenger car segment will again be downgraded," SIAM senior director Sugato Sen said here.
In October, SIAM had significantly lowered its passenger car sales growth forecast for 2011-12 to 2-4%, the second revision after pegging it at 10-12% in July, as against its projection of 16-18% announced at the beginning of the current financial year.
In the April-November period this fiscal, domestic car sales declined by 3.53% to 12,19,509 units from 12,64,142 units in the year-ago period.
"We may not see a decline in car sales for the entire fiscal... The numbers may be just at the same level of last fiscal," Sen said.
After four consecutive months of decline, the domestic car segment witnessed a turnaround with 7% growth in sales in November this year on account of a marginal revival in demand, coupled with a low base.
However, sales in December are likely to be lower than the November numbers, said Sen.
Car sales in India have been declining on a year-on-year basis since July, mainly due to the severe impact of labour issues on Maruti Suzuki India's (MSI) production.
Sales registered their steepest monthly decline in nearly 11 years in October this year, tanking by 23.77% on account of a huge drop in output by MSI due to labour trouble, coupled with high interest rates and fuel prices.
Talking about the passenger vehicle segment, Sen said: "It may see a growth of around 2%."
In October, SIAM had estimated that the passenger vehicles segment would grow by 4-6% this fiscal. It had earlier forecast 10-12% growth in July, a stark downward revision from its initial projection of 16-18% at the beginning of the fiscal.
It had said utility vehicle sales were likely to increase by 9-11%, as against the estimate of 10-12% announced earlier.
On total vehicles sales, SIAM had revised its projection marginally upward to 11-14% for FY12 from 11-13% announced in July.
SIAM had revised its growth projection for the two-wheeler segment upward in October to 13-15% from 12-14% announced three months earlier, while the estimate for commercial vehicle sales was increased to 13-15% from the earlier estimate of 12-14% in July.