Nearly one in two luxury cars sold in India in the first three months of 2024 was a Mercedes Benz, which achieved its best ever quarter (January-March), selling 5,412 units, up 15 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) from 4,697 units in the previous year.
'Our strategy is intact and our important pillars for India -- the SUV roll-out and the focus on the cost of ownership of a car -- remain in focus'
While Elon Musk's political influence continues to grow, his business empire is witnessing headwinds.
Maruti Suzuki's contribution to the sales revenue of its Japanese parent, Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), has touched the highest-ever figure during April-December of FY23. According to SMC's results declared on Tuesday, Maruti's share in its global revenues jumped from 33.42 per cent in April-December of FY22 to 40.93 per cent in the corresponding period of FY23.
The question is: Will the company have a strong balance sheet to support this massive investment plan?
TVS Motor Company has been one of the best-performing two-wheeler stocks in the current financial year (FY24), enriching investors with gains of 24 per cent. Among listed two-wheeler stocks, only Hero MotoCorp has done better in this period. New launches, market share gains, steady margins and expectations that its performance will continue in FY24 are expected to support TVS Motor's stock.
The stock of the country's largest passenger vehicle maker, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), has been hitting successive all-time highs over the past three trading sessions. The rally in the scrip has helped it notch over a 21 per cent gain since the start of February, outperforming the National Stock Exchange Nifty Auto Index. The gains for the leader of small passenger cars have been more recent, as the company still trails the Nifty Auto over one- and two-year periods.
India's three-wheeler exports, which have been on a downhill trajectory over the past few years, are showing no signs of recovery in FY25, with key markets like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Egypt witnessing subdued demand. In May, the country's exports plummeted 11.3 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y).
'SUV is a very intensely fought category, unlike hatchbacks and cars.'
Maruti Suzuki says it has sold at least one car in 418,000 villages.
Passenger vehicle dispatches in India from factories to dealers rose to record levels at over 43 lakh units in FY25, with utility vehicles accounting for 65 per cent of the total sales in the segment, industry body SIAM said on Tuesday. Passenger vehicle (PV) dispatches rose to 43,01,848 units in the last fiscal year, marking a 2 per cent increase compared to 42,18,750 units in FY 2023-24.
For the first time in history, the luxury car market is poised to cross the sales mark of 50,000 units in 2024, with Mercedes leading the way
Tata Motors is likely to exit the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 indices once the demerger process of its commercial vehicle (CV) and passenger vehicle (PV) businesses is complete, analysts at Nuvama Institutional Equities said. They have compared the development with Reliance Industries (RIL) and Jio Financial Services, which got listed separately and eventually (in the next few days) got excluded from the domestic indices.
India's largest life insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reported encouraging performance in the January-March quarter (Q4) of FY24. Total annual premium equivalent (APE) was at Rs 21,180 crore, up 10.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), with group APE of Rs 3,890 crore, up 60 per cent Y-o-Y, though individual APE contracted 2.1 per cent Y-o-Y. The participatory book contracted 20.2 per cent Y-o-Y, but the non-par grew by 206 per cent to Rs 3,740 crore.
With sentiment for the automotive (auto) sector turning positive, stocks of two-wheeler auto majors have been hitting their 52-week highs. Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor Company, and Eicher Motors recently reached their yearly highs on strong sales in the festival season and the expectation of faster growth rates ahead. Since the start of this month, listed two-wheeler majors have delivered returns in the 12-17 per cent range, compared to the 7 per cent gains for the S&P BSE Auto Index and 3 per cent for the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
Tata Motors plans to have 10 new battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in its domestic product portfolio by 2025 as it looks to drive its business model towards sustainable mobility going ahead, as per Tata Motors chairman N Chandrasekaran. In his message to the shareholders, he noted that the auto major aims to be amongst the world leaders in sustainable mobility solutions and as part of that it is also exploring tie-ups in cell and battery manufacturing to secure supplies for its portfolio of green vehicles. "In India, EV penetration in our portfolio has now doubled to 2 per cent this year and we expect penetration to increase exponentially in the coming years. "Tata Motors will lead this change in the Indian market. By 2025, Tata Motors will have 10 new BEV vehicles and as a Group, we will invest proactively to set up charging infrastructure across the country," Chandrasekaran informed shareholders in the company's Annual Report for 2020-21.
Chinese electric carmaker BYD is focusing on launching vehicles in the Rs 25-45 lakh price range in India even as it continues to evaluate customer preferences and demand in more affordable segments, its Head of Electric Passenger Vehicles in India Rajeev Chauhan told Business Standard.
'We are seeing one of the highest discounts in recent years across companies.' 'October is a crucial month with several festivals coming up.'
The stock of auto component major Bosch was up 2.5 per cent on Wednesday and in the process hit its 52-week high. Expectations of higher volumes of medium and heavy commercial vehicles' (M&HCV), rise in content supplies on account of BS VI stage 2 implementation from April, and improved profitability are some of the positives for the stock. In addition to this, the company appointed a new managing director and joint managing director last week, which will come into effect from July 1.
Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi, once hailed as rising stars in India's clean energy sector, are now facing serious regulatory action.
From the Sensex pack, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zones, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, State Bank of India, UltraTech Cement and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major gainers. In contrast, Tata Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finserv, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services were among the laggards.
The board of Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) on Tuesday approved a proposal to issue shares worth Rs 12,841 crore to parent company Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) for acquiring Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG). The Gujarat manufacturing plant - with an annual capacity of 750,000 units - is owned by SMG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMC. The shares issued to SMC will raise its ownership in MSIL from 56.48 per cent to 58.19 per cent--India's largest carmaker stated in a notice to BSE.
Car sales are experiencing a challenging phase with around Rs 60,000 crore worth of inventory lying unsold with dealers.
Steel maker JSW Steel's Q3 results, announced on January 24, 2025, after market hours, failed to meet Street expectations. The company reported a consolidated net profit attributable to the owners of Rs 717 crore in Q3FY25, reflecting a 70.3 per cent decline Y-o-Y, compared to Rs 2,415 crore in Q3FY24.
The MG ZS EV, to be unveiled next month, will go head to head with Hyundai Kona, launched in July this year as the country's first fully electric SUV.
According to Siam data, Indian auto companies sold 982,456 units of utility vehicles in the first half of FY23, a 50.29 per cent growth over the corresponding period last year.
Given that there has been no negative news flow around Zomato, analysts believe it's time to lap up the shares at lower levels.
Electric vehicle retail sales in the country witnessed over three-fold jump last fiscal with two-wheeler offtake leading the segment, according to data compiled by automobile dealers' body FADA. Total electric vehicle (EV) retails reached 4,29,217 units in 2021-22, a rise of three-fold from 1,34,821 units in the financial year 2020-21, the industry body said. Total EV sales had stood at 1,68,300 units in the 2019-20 fiscal, it noted.
Vietnam-based electric vehicle maker VinFast, a rival of Tesla in the global market, has set foot in India and began work on building its Rs 16,000 crore EV manufacturing facility at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. The company has already sought a reduction in import duties on its cars for about two years until customers get familiar with the brand and its unit in the state. The global major kicked off the construction of the first phase of its integrated EV hub, which may see Rs 4,000 crore of investment initially and will create more than 10,000 jobs.
The Warren Buffet-backed Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will be unveiling a Born Electric SUV for the Indian market by the fourth quarter of the current calendar year. The deliveries of the same would begin in January, the company's top official said. This will be the first Born Electric SUV in the mass market. The Born Electric models from Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra would be launched from 2024. BYD has been selling the E6 MPV in the Indian market since 2021.
Seven electric two-wheeler companies have suffered a cumulative loss of over Rs 9,000 crore on account of unpaid dues and loss of market after their subsidies were stopped last year, the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said on Wednesday. These companies have also been directed by the govt to refund the subsidies availed by them. The audit by SMEV's chartered accountants indicates the total, cumulative damages to affected companies could account for over Rs 9,000 crore on a conservative basis, it noted.
Siemens delivered a strong margin performance and also reported high other income to beat consensus in the January-March quarter (Q2) of FY24 (the company's year-end is September 30). In addition, it has opted to demerge the energy vertical with a 1:1 award of shares in the newly demerged entity which will be listed by the end of this year (CY25).
The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India on Friday reported a 47.8 per cent rise in net profit for the March quarter of FY24 to Rs 3,877.8 crore, on account of higher sales volume and favourable commodity prices.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) does not anticipate growth in the small car segment because people continue to find these vehicles unaffordable, chairman R C Bhargava said on Wednesday. He said the market had clearly shifted towards the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment and the company will go in the same direction. The domestic sales of utility vehicles jumped in India by 34.54 per cent to about 2 million units in FY23.
To come up with first EV by 2025, expects market to grow two to three-fold in the next ten years.
Global supermajor BP Plc's exclusivity with Reliance Industries Ltd has ended but the energy giant will continue to pursue oil and gas as well as mobility ventures in India with the Mukesh Ambani firm owing to an unwritten strategic partnership, BP's outgoing India head Sashi Mukundan said. BP in 2011 spent $7.2 billion to acquire 30 per cent interest in 23 oil and gas blocks of Reliance. Eastern offshore KG-D6 block was the cornerstone of the deal that also provided for a 10-year exclusivity period which meant that BP would take up energy projects or investments in India only in partnership with Reliance.
The Street's optimism on India's largest listed automotive maker by market capitalisation is not misplaced, given the robust wholesale performance in recent months and the strong 2023-24 (FY24) October-December (Q3) results.
Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said on Wednesday that the company's share market performance has been in line with that of global peers in the sector over the past six months due to macroeconomic factors. "Macro factors like quantitative easing, free money due to US monetary policy and other parameters led to a spook in the market in terms of pricing the IPO. "Paytm's shares have received a similar response to that of global peers in the last six months...But that is not a complete reasoning.
After climbing to a record high of Rs 523 on September 30, shares of commodity major Vedanta have come off over 15 per cent amid a fall in the overall markets. The Anil Agarwal-led firm's latest slump comes after its stock price doubled over the past one year. Is it a blip or a trend reversal?
Plug-in hybrids have two engines and the electric part has a much larger battery than in the regular hybrids. Car companies, led by the Japanese, are pushing the Indian government to look at hybrids in the interim if it wants to reduce carbon emission.
