The importance of the automobile sector, comprising of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and their auto-component suppliers, can’t be stressed enough. It is one of the largest employers in the manufacturing sector due to forward and backward linkages with other key industries, contributes more than 7% to GDP and projected to be world's 3rd largest automotive market in terms of volume by 2026.
However, the sector has got little attention despite the rough patch it has been going through. Post IL&FS fiasco, the funding for the sector, like most of other sectors, had dried up, interest rates were high, volumes dipped, metal costs squeezed margins, capex incurred on capacity augmentation wasn’t giving returns (due to low volumes), fixed costs kept rising (added by capex), Government regulations on emissions and applicability of BS-VI, promoters were hesitant to put in their money and so on. The list doesn’t end, neither the miseries of players in this sector.
FY20 itself was a bad year for the sector. One can’t talk enough about what this industry has gone through during the Covid-19 pandemic but even before that i.e. Q1, Q2 and Q3 saw decline in sales volume. Sales volume in 9MFY20 (period from April 01 to December 31) for the entire sector had gone down by 24% (Auto Industry Sales Performance of December & April-December 2020) largely dragged by 3-Wheeler (3W) and Commercial Vehicle (CV) segment.
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Things got worse in Q4 FY20, especially from March 2020 when Covid-19 pandemic had started impacting entire world. Nobody had thought that after the torture our automobile industry had gone through in FY20, there was a new hell waiting for it viz. ‘Pandemic Covid-19’. It had killed millions globally, practically stopped the whole world, house-arrested people, thrown millions out of jobs and what not. Prior to Covid-19 spreading worldwide, industry was expecting growth from April 2020 onwards. However, all such hopes shelved later. Plants were under shut-down, salaries had to be paid as government had imposed notification for no firing or cut in salaries, fixed plant expenses stayed but collections had dried-up.
Though GoI announced first lockdown on March 24, 2020 (4th week) for 21 days, the damage to the sector was already done. Consequently, the industry’s sales witnessed a fall of 45% in March alone. CV sales plunged by 88% due to muted performance of infrastructure & construction sectors, PV by 51% given the decline in spending by households and uncertainty about future growth; 3W and Two-Wheeler (2W) were also down by 58% and 40% respectively owing to lackluster rural demand. It was bloodbath for the sector which was already shy of poor show during the year.
For FY20, PV sales declined by 18%, CV by 29%, 3W and 2W by 9% and 18% respectively. Overall impact was depressing 18% to the sector. One can’t be empathetic enough for what it means for the companies, their vendors, employees and the economy as a whole.
Market leader Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s (MSIL) sales volume witnessed degrowth of 18%, Hero Motocorp Ltd (HMCL) of 18%, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) 18%, Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) 8% and Tata Motors Ltd (TML) 18%. Analysis of the financial performance requires a separate article which we shall come up soon. Right now, let’s just focus on sectoral results.
Just to understand the impact on the sector, auto sales dropped by 75% in Q1; PV by 78%, CV by 85%, 3W by 91% and 2W by 74%. It takes years to see growth of such quantum which just got vanished in a quarter which had 45 days lockdown. The chart just shows these figures.
However, one could see the silver lining from June onwards when lockdown was being enforced in specific areas only, factories had resumed operations, supply-chain was getting back on track, people were going for buying essentials, etc. The resilience of Indian economy and auto industry made the early comeback possible for the players. Rural India was lesser impacted by the pandemic and also first to get back on track. That, along with declining impact of pandemic, good monsoons, approaching festive season, Q2 saw growth of staggering 17% in PV sales volumes while 2W was largely at previous year levels. CV and 3W still struggled due to lack of traction on infra projects as well as inter & intra state supply-chain issues.
But what about Q3? This is the most promising part of year for the whole economy, especially for automobile sector, with Diwali and Dhanteras stealing most sales. Price hike by OEMs in the New Year was another factor impacting auto sales in Q3. Sales for PV grew yoy by 14% and 2W by 13%, while CV was largely at previous year levels with just 1% dip in sales. 3W sales kept plummeting at 59% in Q3.
Starting the New Year 2021 with fingers crossed and hope in eyes, we saw many OEMs revising vehicle prices. This was to enable them tide over (a) losses incurred during 9MFY21 and (b) increase in commodity prices, especially steel and copper. The green shoots can be seen with overall vehicle sales increasing by 5% yoy and 24% MoM in January 2021. PV segment enjoyed jump in sales of 11% YoY backed by 37% growth in UV while car sales fell by 1% YoY. 2W sales grew by 7%. CV data was not available with SIAM (actually SIAM has stopped sharing monthly CV data since past few months due to unavailability of data from some OEMs).
While there have been countless challenges in the automobile sector. However, the industry has, with its resilient performance, shown that it remains a crucial contributor to nation’s growth and has all that is needed to sail through anything adverse.
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