India's passenger vehicles market may touch 5.6-mn units by 2017: SIAM

NEW DELHI: The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has stated that the size of the domestic passenger vehicles market is expected to reach 5.6-million units by 2017, even after the market is seeing a slowdown in the last few months.

Mr Pawan Goenka, President of SIAM, said, “The growth figure that we are now working out for the 12th Five-Year plan indicates that we may see domestic passenger vehicle sales of 5.6 million units and the export of 1.3 million units by the end of 2017.” This announcement was made at the industry body's annual summit here.

Moreover, the vehicle manufacturers and also the component players should plan their investment and also capacity expansion strategy for meeting this demand. Due to the slowdown in last few months, the auto industry is expected to bring revision in the growth projection for passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles further.

SIAM has stated that it is expected to lower its growth estimation for vehicle sales in India from the previous projection of 11-13%, which has been declared two months back.

In July, SIAM had brought down its vehicle sales growth estimation for fiscal year 2011-12 to 11-13% from the previous projection of 12-15% made during April, due to the stronger interest rates and also surging fuel prices.