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Passenger vehicle wholesale in September surged around 21% to 4.60 lakh units, buoyed by the sustaining effect of last year's GST rate cut, stable repo rate, positive consumer sentiment, festive mood, among other reasons. Major passenger vehicle manufacturers in the country, including OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Mahindra, Hyundai, Kia, JSW MG Motor India, have clocked double-digit growth.
The domestic wholesale growth comes as car manufacturers ramp up their supplies to dealerships ahead of the start of peak festive season in October, which is generally considered the best period of the year for the auto OEMs to post their maximum sales. While the demand stayed healthy, the low base from September 2025 also helped the automakers to post double-digit growth, when sales were hit for almost 22 days ahead of the GST 2.0 announcement.
India's biggest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki witnessed its domestic passenger vehicle dispatches jump 37% to 181,838 units in September, up from 132,820 clocked in September 2025. Tata Motors emerged as the second-largest player with dispatches of 68,810 units in September 2026, up 15% YoY from 59,667 units dispatched in the corresponding month last year. Another homegrown auto giant, Mahindra, recorded 14% YoY growth in wholesales with 64,092 units, up from last year's 58,233 units. On the other hand, Hyundai's domestic wholesales grew 10.9% to 57,166 units, up from 51.547 units dispatched in the same month a year ago.
Among others, Kia and JSW MG Motor India clocked 41% and 19% YoY growth in their respective domestic wholesale, by dispatching 32,017 units and 8,018 units to dealerships, respectively. Nissan clocked a 100% YoY wholesale growth with 3,300 units dispatched to the dealerships.
While the aforementioned carmakers recorded double-digit growth, Toyota, Honda and Renault remained in the red. Toyota's wholesale in September dropped 7.6%, while Honda and Renault clocked 16% and 20.3% drops in their respective wholesale volumes last month.
Speaking on this sales performance, Maruti Suzuki India Senior Executive Officer Partho Banerjee said the industry continues to see tailwinds from lower GST rates, a reduction in repo rates, which lowered borrowing costs, as well as the change in income tax slabs. Maruti Suzuki claims to have a pending order book for 2 lakh units and network stock of 17 days. Hyundai is expecting the momentum to continue in the coming weeks. "Going ahead, we are expecting sustained customer enthusiasm during the festive season," Tarun Garg, MD and CEO of Hyundai Motor India, said.
The Indian passenger vehicle industry is anticipating robust demand during the peak festival season, which starts with Navratri in the second week of October this year and runs till Diwali in the second week of November. However, the growth rate could be lower in this festival season as the industry saw a pent-up demand in the year-ago festival period after new GST rates were rolled out on September 22 last year.
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