SUVs propel India to 3rd largest car market in the world in FY24

Amid a robust demand and easing of supply chain constraints, India became the third-largest passenger vehicle (PV) market in the world in FY24 going past 4 million units in wholesales for the first time in a year with sport utility vehicles (SUVs) accounting for over half of the volumes.

Record car sales in India in FY24

During the fiscal, PV volumes reached 4,229,566 units. This was a growth of 8.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) over 3,890,000 units sold in FY23. India is now ahead of Japan and only behind China and the United States of America (USA) in car sales.

In March, the PV wholesales rose 10% y-o-y at 370,381 units from 336,566 units in the year-ago month. This was also the best-ever March performance witnessed by the car market.

Boost from SUVs

In FY24, the SUV segment strengthened its position with a share of 50.4%. The hatchback segment and the sedan segment dipped to 27.8% and 9%, respectively. However, the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) segment and the van segment rose to 9.3% and 3.5%, respectively.

With the introduction of fresh models and updates to the existing ones, the SUV segment has seen phenomenal growth over the past few years. Its share in the PV market stood at 32% in FY21, rising to 40.1% in FY22 and further to 43% in FY23 before going past 50% in FY24.

Best-ever annual domestic car volumes for Maruti, Hyundai, Tata, Mahindra

The country's largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki India, ended the fiscal with record annual domestic PV wholesales of 1,759,881 units, witnessing a growth of 9.5% y-o-y.

Maruti's Executive Committee Member Shashank Srivastava said that while the WagonR was the largest-selling car in FY24, the carmaker had six models among the 10 best-selling cars and 10 models among the 15 best-selling cars in India during the fiscal.

Srivastava also said that Maruti improved its SUV market share from 11% in FY23 to 21% in FY24 on the back of impressive performance from the new Fronx, Brezza and Grand Vitara. He informed that the carmaker had 198,000 pending orders at the end of March, with 70,000 for the Ertiga and 8,000 for the Grand Vitara.

Hyundai Motor India reported its highest-ever domestic volumes since inception at 614,721 units in FY24, logging