India’s passenger vehicle (PV) market, with 31,39,288 units in the April-December 2024 period, is well set to surpass the 4-million-units mark for the second fiscal year in a row. In FY2024, India PV Inc had registered record wholesales of 42.1 lakh cars, SUVs, MPVs and vans, an increase of 8 percent over FY2023’s 38.9 lakh units. What is enabling the segment to achieve the big number is the consistently growing contribution of the utility vehicle (UV) sub-segment.
- Maruti, Mahindra combined have a 46 percent share of total UV sales
- Tata, Hyundai have both sold over 3 lakh units in the current fiscal
- Toyota sees massive growth, while Kia UV sales are flat in FY2024
Maruti, Mahindra and Tata top UV sales in April-December 2024
At the top is UV market leader is Maruti, with 5,28,963 units, up 15 percent YoY, and a 26 percent share of the UV market. Mahindra, which has a 10-model-strong portfolio, is the No. 2 with 4,02,360 units, up 21 percent YoY and a 20 percent UV market share. Tata Motors is currently ranked third with 3,18,043 units, up 16 percent YoY and a 15.52 percent market share.
Hyundai, Toyota and Kia sell well over 1 lakh UVs in April-December 2024
Exactly 14,000 UVs behind Tata is Hyundai with 3,04,017 units, up 7 percent YoY, and a market share of 15 percent. Toyota is having a fine run and sold 1,89,868 units, up 43 percent YoY, has a 9 percent market share. This makes Toyota the fastest growing carmaker in terms of UV sales. The Japanese brand is followed by Kia India, which despatched 1,79,631 units, but saw flat (0 percent YoY) sales for an 8.76 percent market share.
Of this lot, Mahindra has sold the highest additional number of UV in the past nine months – 68,596 units compared to Maruti Suzuki (68,375 units), Toyota (56,964 units), Tata Motors (44,069 units) or Hyundai (20,374 units).
India SUV and MPV sales heading for new record in FY2024
With three months still left in this fiscal year, all these six OEMs with SUV-heavy portfolios are well set to register record UV sales on FY2025. While Maruti Suzuki needs to sell 1,13,333 UVs more (FY2024: 642,296 units) to achieve record UV sales, Mahindra just needs 54,504 units more (FY2024: 4,59,864 units), which it will achieve either in January 2025 or early February.
Tata Motors, which had clocked sales of 3,88,418 UVs in FY2024, is currently 70,375 units away from that figure. Hyundai, ranked third in FY2024 (3,88,725 units, 15.42 percent UV share) is currently 84,708 UVs shy of that number. Toyota will have already surpassed its FY2024 numbers (1,91,065 units, 7.57 percent UV share) in the first few days of January 2025. Kia India, with sales of 1,79,631 UVs in April-December 2024, is the farthest from achieving record sales in FY2024 (FY2023: 2,45,634 UVs), with the difference currently standing at 66,003 units.
Increase in UV sales compared to car and sedan sales
10 years ago, in FY2015, the hatchback and sedan market commanded a 72 percent share of overall passenger vehicle sales. That has now nosedived to a record low of 31 percent in April-December 2024, while the SUV-MPV share has jumped to 65 percent from 21 percent in FY2015.
Along with the accelerated shift to SUVs, other factors have played spoilsport. These include hatchback and sedan prices rising by over 50 percent over the past few years – due to increased cost inputs and regulatory upgrades – along with the much-slackened demand for entry-level hatchbacks as a result of stagnating income in that buyer segment.
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