MG Motor India looking at sales recovery with Covid curbs easing

MG Motor India is looking at gradual sales recovery in the next few months. As the Covid-19 curbs are easing across India, the automaker hopes demand and sales will increase gradually with the revival of business activities. The automaker hopes to witness a 20% sales growth for the industry in CY2021 compared to 2020, said MG Motor India President and MD Rajeev Chaba to the news agency PTI.

MG Motor India currently sells models like Hector, Hector Plus, Gloster, ZS EV. It is expecting to post a better sales record compared to the industry, despite supply chain challenges and increased input cost. "We probably would have over 70% growth. So it is still better than the industry growth but a little less than our earlier projections," Rajeev Chaba said.

The automaker sold 28,162 units in 2020, as compared with 15,930 units sold in 2019.

Rajeev Chaba said that the auto industry was expecting to post 30-40% sales growth in 2021 to reach closer to 2018 figures. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has jeopardized all the plans though. With this, achieving 30-40% growth is not possible.

"As an industry, we were expecting 30-40% sales growth this year taking us closer to 2018 numbers. But nobody had anticipated the second wave at that time. Now with what has happened, it would not be possible to get 30-40% growth. There would be growth over last year but now we expect it to be around 20%," Rajeev Chaba said.

He believes the worst of the second wave of the pandemic is over. "June is already turning out to be better as compared with May and July is expected to be better than June, so numbers have started to go up. In May we touched the bottom as an industry and the numbers would start going up now," Chaba further stated.

Besides pandemic, the auto industry has been also witnessing challenges such as the semiconductor crisis, increased raw material cost, higher fuel price in 2021. These are impacting demand and subsequently sales of the automakers. The availability of a workforce too is becoming another challenge for the automakers amid the pandemic.

"Shipping issues, steel price cost, chip shortage, I think these issues are creating problems in stabilisation of the supply chain. In terms of Covid related issues like workforce and all, that is not a problem. So I think supply chain constraints will remain for some more time because these issues are not going to go away soon and I see the rest of this year to be impacted by these issues," Chaba further pointed.