Meanwhile, Tata Motors Ltd’s monthly sales recorded a 12.7% decline to 38,535, as both Hyundai and Tata continued to struggle against a surge in Mahindra’s sport utility vehicle (SUV) sales, according to data from Vahan, the ministry of road transport and highways’ vehicle registry.
To be sure, these numbers record the total registrations done by consumers across the country and don’t account for wholesale dispatches to dealers.
Mahindra’s wholesale dispatches during May were 52,431, a surge of 21% compared to the year ago period. Tata Motors’ wholesale sales during the month were down 11% to 42,040.
Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki will release their wholesale numbers on Monday.
“Thanks to continued demand for our products, we were able to deliver industry-leading growth across our internal combustion engines (ICE) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) portfolio,” Nalinikanth Gollagunta, CEO, Automotive Division at Mahindra and Mahindra, said in a statement.
Compared to other car makers who have varied offerings such as hatchbacks, sedans and SUVs, Mahindra’s portfolio largely has SUVs, which have benefited from consumers’ preference for larger cars.
Vahan data shows that in the first two months of the current financial year, Mahindra has sold about 94,843 passenger vehicles, which has cemented its place in the second position. Meanwhile, Tata Motors and Hyundai are lagging behind in 3rd and 4th position with 85,621 and 82,999 PV sales.
Rising fast
In FY2025, Mahindra was at the 4th spot with 512,626 retail sales while Hyundai and Tata Motors were ahead with 559,149 and 535,960 sales, respectively. Going by the trends of the first two months of the current financial year, Mahindra is laying a strong claim to the second spot on the car sales podium.
Meanwhile, the country’s largest car seller Maruti Suzuki India Ltd recorded a 6% decline in retail sales as it sold 116,875 passenger vehicles during the month.
The expectation of growth in the passenger vehicle market during the financial year is tepid, with the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers estimating a 1-2% growth in FY26.
Analysts say that the overall growth environment in the passenger vehicle market remains weak.
“Channel inventory is at the slightly higher end of normalised levels with 5-6 weeks across key OEMs for ICE while EV inventory increased to ~60 days,” analysts at Yes Securities wrote in a 26 May note.
“Mirroring the trend of the last few months, key markets within South India indicated flat to mid single growth decline in retail (sales) while West and North show flattish to decline,” the note said.
However, car makers appear divided about the state of the passenger vehicle market.
Mahindra Group managing director and chief executive Anish Shah remained sanguine about the domestic car market, expecting the blip in urban demand to pass shortly.
Maruti Suzuki chairman R.C. Bhargava highlighted during the car maker’s post results media briefing on 25 April that the state of growth in the car market is worrying.
Limited growth
“Growth in the domestic market has been very limited. For a country with such low penetration of cars, the growth rate of 2-3% is not going to increase it at all. It is a matter of some worry,” said Bhargava.
For Bhargava, the major worry was the small car market.
“In this current year, sales of small cars have declined by about 9%. If there is such a decline in the sales of cars that can be afforded by 88% of people earning, how can we expect growth?” Bhargava said.
But Mahindra and Mahindra is optimistic about the market.
“The sentiment is positive in the market,” Shah said during a post-earnings media briefing on Monday. “Along with a SUV-led portfolio, the quality of the products being rolled out by our team is also receiving strong interest from consumers,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor India is planning to launch 26 models in the country’s car market by FY2030 as part of its blitzkrieg to win growth. Out of these 26, 20 will be internal combustion engine vehicles while six will be EVs. The company will also bring a hybrid model to the market soon.
Market share
“No company wants to lose market share. Even we don’t want to lose market share,” Tarun Garg, chief operating officer at Hyundai Motor India, said during the company’s earnings call on 16 May.
“What we are doing is, one, putting the accelerator up on exports both in terms of trying to look at new markets, also the existing models in the current markets and also instead of reducing price, what we are doing is, we are introducing higher features in the lower trims also.”
Tata Motors is also planning to win back growth through a push in the hatchback segment and new EV launches such as Harrier EV and Sierra EV.
“Much of the degrowth in the market has happened in the cheaper hatchbacks. Consumers are expecting a lot more from their cars, which is leading a lot of car buyers to directly jump to premium hatchbacks,” Vivek Srivatsa, chief commercial officer at Tata Motors, said.
The company wants to increase the share of smaller hatchbacks in its overall portfolio to nearly one-fourth from 19% currently.
Mahindra and Mahindra’s share price has declined by 3.6% so far in 2025 as against a 2.5% surge in Hyundai’s shares. Nifty Auto has gained 0.8% since the start of the year.
