India displaces Germany as the world’s fourth largest vehicle market

 

India has displaced Germany as the world’s fourth largest market for vehicle sales by volume and is in line to take the number three position from Japan within the next three years.

Commercial and passenger vehicle sales in India grew 8.3 per cent in 2018 to 3.99m, overtaking the 3.74 of sales in Germany, a market that grew less than  1 per cent according to the latest data from market intelligence provider LMC automotive. Mckinsey has projected that India is poised to overtake Japan as third biggest market by 2021.

With a potential 1.2 billion people needing vehicles, at a average selling price for passenger cars in India is about $7000. Car volumes in India are still dwarfed by those of motorbikes and scooters with sales of 20.2 m units last year. India’s passenger vehicle demand is led by utility vehicles.

Globally China is the largest automobile market both in terms of demand and supply, in 2017, China produced 25 million passenger cars and around four million commercial vehicles 3.9 per cent, followed by United States 17.58 million  -1.6 per cent, Japan 5.24m, 5.4 per cent, India’s 4.02m, 9.5  per cent, Germany 3,81, 2.8 per cent and UK 2.96m, -5.4 per cent .

German carmakers, which dominated China’s rapid growth as it reached world’s largest market over the last three decades, appear to be unprepared for this change.

India’s car market has lot of capacity for further growth