Specifically, according to preliminary data, new car sales in India reached at least 4.25 million units last year, surpassing 4.2 million units sold in Japan.
According to data from the Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, 4.13 million new cars were delivered in India from January to November 2022. In addition to the December sales reported by Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest automaker, total sales for the full year are estimated at nearly 4.25 million units.
India’s car sales are likely to be even higher if expected fourth-quarter sales of commercial vehicles are taken into account, along with year-end results from Tata Motors and other automakers. Others have yet to be announced.
Tata Motors, India’s largest car company, has a wide range of low cost cars for the domestic market.
In 2021, China will remain the world’s largest car market with sales of 26.27 million units. The US is second with 15.4 million units, followed by Japan with 4.44 million units.
In recent years, the Indian car market has witnessed great volatility. In 2018, this market achieved a turnover of 4.4 million units. However, this fell below 4 million units in 2019, mainly due to the credit crunch that hit the non-banking sector that year.
As the Covid pandemic crippled economic activity across India in 2020, car sales plummeted even further, falling below 3 million units. This number will recover in 2021 and reach 4 million units. However, the shortage of car chips has significantly affected the revenue growth of this industry.
Gasoline cars, including hybrids, will make up the majority of new car sales in India by 2022. Electric vehicles are hardly present. Cars marketed in India are said to have fewer chips than cars sold in developed economies.
The crisis of the shortage of car chips will be partially resolved in 2022, which will help to restore the sales of this market. Automakers such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and other Indian automakers all posted sales growth last year.
India has a population of 1.4 billion and is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year. The population of this country is expected to continue to increase until the early 2060s. Along with the increase in population, people’s income will increase.
According to the British research firm Euromonitor, only 8.5% of Indian households will own a car by 2021. This shows that there is still a lot of room for the auto industry to grow sales. The Indian government has started to introduce more subsidies for electric vehicles because of the trade deficit caused by increased petroleum imports.
Meanwhile, new car sales in Japan will reach 4.201 million units in 2022, down 5.6% from 2021 – according to data from the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and the Association of Motorcycles and Motorcycles light Japanese.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns in China, car production fell significantly, leaving automakers unable to meet demand. Car sales in Japan peaked in 1990 with 7.77 million units. That means sales are now down by nearly half from their peak. In addition, the declining population casts a dark shadow over the prospect of a sales recovery of this industry in Japan in the near future.
In 2006, China overtook Japan as the second largest car market in the world. In 2009, China overtook the US to maintain the number one position in the world.
This is reported by Nikkei Asia
