New Delhi, Sep 12 (PTI) Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor expect record festive sales this year amid concerns over high interest rates and the likelihood of deficient monsoon affecting rural sentiments.

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual SIAM Convention here, Maruti Suzuki India Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, Shashank Srivastava said that on average, the festive season accounts for about 23-26 per cent of the industry's annual sales.

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This fiscal, the total expected PV sales is 40.5-41 lakh, and 25 per cent of it means that the festive season sales this year would cross the 10 lakh sales mark.

"This is the first time it will cross the 1 million mark. The previous peak was 9.34 lakh in 2021, which had two things going for it. It had 92 days of festive seasons and there was a pent-up demand due to Covid-19 induced lockdown in Q1 (of the year)," Srivastava said.

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For MSI, he stated that the company has witnessed a 24 per cent (year-on-year) increase in Onam sales this year.

For September, he said a record wholesales is expected around 3.61 lakh units, better than last year's 3.55 lakh units.

However, Srivastava said there were two factors -- interest rates and monsoon deficit impacting rural sentiment -- to be watched out for.

"One is that interest rates should not go up. They will probably go up if the food inflation remains high. Rural sentiments should not be affected because of rainfall, which currently is minus 8 per cent," he noted.

Srivastava said: "These two things are the red flags. If these two don't happen...then we are okay".

Hyundai Motor India COO Tarun Garg said the automaker expects around 9 per cent year-on-year growth in sales volume in the festive season.

"We are expecting that this year, we should log in around 9 per cent growth over last year," he noted when asked about the company's expected performance in the 83 days period.

Garg stated that in the first half of this year, SUVs contributed 54 per cent to the company's sales.

After the launch of Exter in July and August, SUV share has now gone up 64 per cent of the sales, he added.

Counting positives, Garg said the waiting period has come down, thus helping in the timely deliveries of models.

"...for negatives, last year there was a lot of pent-off demand, which is not there. It is now about fresh demand, and we are happy that it appears to be very strong. Robust fresh demand is a good indicator of things to come, and generally, we are positive about the situation," he noted.

The festive season this year commenced on August 17 and will end on November 14.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)