INDIA: The domestic passenger vehicle (PV) dealership industry will see revenue growth increase by ~100 basis points (bps) on-year, supported by a modest revival in sales volume even as realisations remain rangebound. While a tad better than last fiscal, growth has eased from the strong post-COVID-19 rebound seen up to fiscal 2024 as volume growth normalised.

The improvement in volume will benefit dealers in two ways. First, ancillary income will rise while promotions and discounts will reduce, lifting operating profitability to 3.2-3.4% after it fell 30-35 bps last fiscal. Second, elevated inventory levels from the last fiscal will moderate. That, and no major capex expected for showroom expansion, will reduce debt levels.

Consequently, the credit profiles of dealers will remain stable after moderating last fiscal from the healthy levels seen after the pandemic. A Crisil Ratings analysis of ~110 PV dealers, indicates as much.

Volume growth is pegged at 4-6% (chart 1 in annexure) this fiscal, with realisations expected to rise 3-4% backed by price increases by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and continuing tilt towards sports utility vehicles (SUVs). Consequently, dealers are expected to see high single-digit revenue growth with both the urban segment (constituting two-thirds of the annual demand) and the rural segment growing in tandem.

Says Himank Sharma, Director, Crisil Ratings, “Increasing urban disposable incomes backed by revision in tax slabs, interest rate cuts and a benign inflation, and sustained popularity of SUVs, will fuel urban demand for PVs. In the rural segment, sales of small cars could see an uptick on expectations of a normal monsoon and improved farm incomes amid higher minimum support prices. Consequently, we see the industry growing at 7-9% this fiscal.”

Higher volumes will also lift ancillary revenues from sales of motor insurance and accessories. Also, services and spares revenues will benefit from the high PV sales seen from fiscals 2022 to 2024. All these are relatively higher-margin segments and will cumulatively contribute 11-13% of total revenues, compared with ~10% or lower during the past few fiscals.

With improved revenue visibility and a push towards high-margin businesses, discounts and promotions will be limited to the non-peak seasons instead of year-round seen last fiscal. This reduction in sales promotion costs should provide a 15-20 bps uptick to operating profit margins to 3.2-3.4% this fiscal.

Dealers saw their inventory rise to 50-55 days last fiscal from the normal 30-35 days as retail sales slowed and OEMs sent stock aggressively to push sales numbers. This fiscal, while improved demand will result in inventory correction by 5- 10 days, it will remain higher than the average levels seen prior to fiscal 2024.

Says Ankita Gupta, Associate Director, Crisil Ratings, “With moderate reduction in inventory on-year and limited capital expenditure for new showrooms, debt levels for dealers are likely to decline marginally this fiscal over last. Gearing should improve to 1.0-1.1 times by March 2026 from the peak of 1.2 times seen as of March 2025. Interest coverage is expected to improve to 3.0-3.2 times from 2.9 times last fiscal. Consequently, credit profiles will be stable over the medium term.”

In the road ahead, recovery in retail sales volume, extent of further inventory push by OEMs and improvement in both urban and rural demand will bear watching.

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Pandas is an open-source Python library built on top of NumPy, designed for data manipulation and analysis. It’s especially powerful when working with tabular data like spreadsheets or SQL tables.

Inventory Management System Using Pandas

Overview: This project demonstrates how a retail store can manage its inventory using Python and Pandas. It’s a command-line interface (CLI) tool that stores data in Excel files and uses Pandas for all the heavy lifting.

Key Features:

• Add, update, and delete products from inventory
• Search functionality to find items quickly
• Generate inventory reports using Pandas DataFrames
• Excel integration via openpyxl for persistent storage

Real-World Use Case:

Imagine a small retail shop that tracks stock manually. This system automates that process:

• When new stock arrives, the shopkeeper adds it via the CLI.
• Pandas updates the Excel file and recalculates totals.
• At the end of the day, the shopkeeper runs a report to see what sold and what needs restocking.

Real-World Uses:

• Retail & Inventory Management: Track product sales, manage stock levels, and forecast demand using DataFrames.
• Finance: Analyze stock prices, calculate moving averages, and model portfolio performance.
• Healthcare: Clean and merge patient records, handle missing data, and visualize treatment outcomes.
• Marketing & Sales: Segment customers, analyze campaign performance, and generate reports.

Key Features:

• Data Cleaning & Merging: Combine messy datasets from multiple sources.
• Handling Missing Data: Fill, drop, or interpolate missing values.
• GroupBy Operations: Aggregate data by categories (e.g., sales by region).
• Visualization Integration: Works seamlessly with Matplotlib and Seaborn.

The post Leveraging Pandas for Effective Retail Inventory Management appeared first on NRI News.

• NCR’s inventory saw a 23% yearly decline – from approx. 1,23,692 units by 2022-end to approx. 94,803 units by 2023-end – the highest annual inventory decline among the top 7 cities
• For 1st time in a decade, NCR’s inventory is lower than cities like Hyderabad & Pune
• Of total unsold stock in NCR, Gurugram has a maximum of approx. 37,575 units, but declining 27% y-o-y
• Greater Noida had over 18,825 unsold units by 2023-end, reducing 28% annually
• In Ghaziabad, unsold stock declined by 19% to approx. 12,546 units by 2023-end
• In Noida, unsold stock at approx. 8,648 units by 2023-end, declining 15% annually
• Delhi, Faridabad & Bhiwadi together had 17,199+ unsold units by 2023-end.

NEW DELHI: Delhi-NCR remained one of the most vibrant residential markets among the top 7 cities in 2023. Despite robust sales in the region last year, developers throttled back new supplies to support the liquidation of previously unsold stock, leading to a significant reduction in market inventory.

Latest ANAROCK Research data shows the region winding up 2023 on a very upbeat note. There was a 23% yearly decline in Delhi-NCR’s unsold inventory – from approx. 1,23,692 units by 2022-end to approx. 94,803 units by 2023-end. This is the highest annual decline in unsold housing stock among the top 7 cities. NCR’s unsold stock is currently at a decadal low, sinking below one lakh units for the first time in the last ten years.

Santhosh Kumar, Vice Chairman – ANAROCK Group, says, “Delhi-NCR witnessed approx. 36,735 units launched in 2023, and robust housing sales of approx. 65,625 units. Developers continue to consciously restrict new supply in the region so that they can remain focused on project completions and thus reduce their previous unsold stock. The current unsold stock in the region is way below the other realty hotspot MMR, where the available stock has risen to more than 2 lakh units.

NCR’s inventory has also reached below other top cities, including Pune and Hyderabad,” he adds. “This is remarkable, considering that NCR historically had one of the highest unsold stock burdens among the top 7 cities.”

Unsold Inventory – City-wise Breakup

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Navratri ’23 brought unprecedented sales to auto retail, surpassing the previous high of Navratri ’17, with an overall 18% YoY increase in auto retail during this period. All categories except tractors saw gains during the 10 days of Navratri, with two-wheelers, three-wheelers, commercial vehicles, and PVs growing by 22%, 43%, 9%, and 6.5%, respectively, while tractors faced an 8% decline.

The 3W category set a new record in October ’23, with retail sales hitting an all-time high of 1,04,711 vehicles, eclipsing last month’s record. However, the PV segment faces critical inventory concerns, with inventory levels soaring to an all-time high of 63-66 days, signaling capacity concerns for dealerships. FADA has issued a red flag, urging OEMs to moderate vehicle dispatches and introduce more aggressive and attractive schemes promptly to help dealers clear their inventory before year-end, averting potential financial repercussions associated with excess unsold stock.

FADA’s report also includes OEM-wise market share data for Oct’23, with a YoY comparison. FADA represents over 15,000 automobile dealerships with over 30,000 dealership outlets, including multiple associations of automobile dealers at the regional, state, and city levels, representing the entire auto retail industry in India.

Vehicle Retail Data for Oct’23

All India Vehicle Retail Data for Oct’23

All India Vehicle Retail Data for 10 Days of Navratri

The post FADA Releases Oct’23 Vehicle Retail Data: Navratri Sales Break Records, PV Segment Faces Inventory Concerns appeared first on NRI News.