The sales of passenger vehicles has been on a decline now since the last few months. Even the festive season did not reflect in positive sales for auto manufacturers. This was mainly due to the ever rising fuel prices which had crossed the Rs. 90 per/litre mark in a few states, a few months back. However, since the last month or so, fuel prices have declined from the record high and are now even reducing every day, thanks to the drop in the crude oil price.
This has also resulted in better sales numbers for auto manufacturers lately. Petrol now in Mumbai costs Rs. 75 for a litre, whereas diesel retails at Rs. 65 for a litre. The per litre price of petrol in Delhi was reduced to Rs. 70.17 per litre from Rs. 70.37 per litre and the price of diesel was reduced to Rs. 64.10 per litre from Rs. 64.28 per litre. This is the lowest that fuel has been priced at in a year.
The Deputy Director General, Society Of Indian Automobile Manufacturer (SIAM), Sugato Sen, said that,”Fuel prices have been one of the factors affecting car sales in past months. Now that it is coming down, there should be an offset in the impact and car sales should increase by some margin as we hope customer sentiments to improve.” This was clearly turning out to be a big issue as the sales for the month of November had seen a decline of 3.4% compared to that of the previous year.
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The reducing crude oil prices globally are the main reason for the decline. The prices can be even lesser if the rupee starts to strengthen against the dollar. Currently rupee trades at 71 for a dollar. Currently crude oil prices are at $53.82 for a barrel. This is the lowest that crude oil has fallen since Q3 of 2017. We just hope that this trend continues and we have to shell out less for fuelling our machines!
With inputs from: NDTV