Auto sales data debate: The changing ways of declaring numbers

Mumbai: The automobile industry, going through one of its worst phases, is divided over the way it declares sales data.Tata Motors, the nation’s largest vehicle manufacturer by revenue, has announced it will declare its sales numbers once every quarter instead of every month as is the practice now. While other companies are yet to make announcements, most industry executives ET spoke to want to continue with the current practice while some supported quarterly reporting. There is also a debate over whether to report wholesale numbers or retail, or both. One thing almost everyone agrees on is a single system for a correct market picture. The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has yet to take a stand. India’s largest passenger vehicle maker, Maruti Suzuki, told ET it would follow SIAM’s mandate and release monthly data. Hyundai Motors India sales and marketing director Tarun Garg said Hyundai would also follow SIAM’s guidelines, and that it was fine with reporting wholesale or retail numbers.The industry body, when contacted, said it was in dialogue with Tata Motors over sales reporting and would sort out the issue in two to three weeks. Automakers are expected to see literally zero April sales due to the lockdown, it said.Sceptics feel three months would be too long a period to report sales data, at a time when company information is available online. Monthly sales numbers give a picture of how competition is doing and, accordingly, strategy can be tweaked swiftly, they said. “SIAM will continue to report wholesale and retail numbers from the (government’s) Vaahan site, which is based on registrations,” said a person in the know.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2SfX8Bd
via IFTTT