Healthy growth in the Indian commercial vehicle market to continue: Apollo Tyres chief

The commercial vehicle segment will continue to show healthy growth despite inflationary pressures, because of strong government spending on infrastructure, said Onkar Kanwar, chairman at Apollo Tyres. While the growth rate in the passenger vehicle segment is likely to moderate in the upcoming fiscal on a high base, overall demand momentum for automobiles in the local market will continue, he said.

Sales of passenger vehicles in the domestic market increased 29.5% to 3.46 million units in the first 11 months of FY23. Commercial vehicle sales, meanwhile, grew 46% to over 683,000 units in the first nine months of the fiscal year, as per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

Kanwar told ET: “While there are some headwinds in the near term, the demand momentum looks positive in the medium term. Despite the challenging environment, we are still looking at closing this fiscal with a double-digit increase in top line and expect to maintain the growth momentum next year also.”

Apollo Tyres had posted a 19% increase in consolidated revenue at ₹18,321 crore in the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal.

Domestic demand is, in fact, helping the company tide over the impact of recessionary trends being seen overseas. In Europe – where Apollo Tyres largely operates in the passenger vehicle segment – Kanwar said the company continues to perform better than the overall market. Apollo Tyres has managed to increase its share in the ultra-high-performance segment in the passenger vehicle space in Europe, in line with its premiumisation strategy.