FADA data shows 11.23 lakh vehicles sold in ten days. Electric vehicles are now more than one in every ten sales.
India’s showrooms sold about 11.23 lakh vehicles in the ten days of Navratri this year, says the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA). That is nearly 27% more than in Navratri 2024. It is about 6.5% less than last year. FADA released the provisional figures on 21 October, the day after Dussehra.
The dip against 2025 looks worrying at first, but FADA President Mr. Sai Giridhar says it “is largely optical.” Last year’s festival ran eleven days, not ten. It also began just as the GST 2.0 reforms rolled out, which, he says, “pulled a wave of pent-up demand into one extraordinary window.” In other words, buyers who had waited for lower prices came in all at once.
Two Comparisons
FADA asks to compare this year with 2024, which it calls “the last truly comparable festive period.” On that measure, the numbers are strong. Sales rose in every major category except construction equipment.
Two-wheelers drove the growth. They sold 8.34 lakh units, up 32.4% on 2024. Passenger vehicles, meaning cars and SUVs, reached 1.83 lakh, up 10.4%. Three-wheelers rose 19%, commercial vehicles 16.5% and tractors 20.2%. Wheeled construction equipment was the exception, down 16.5% on 2024.
The extra day also matters. Dividing each total by the number of days gives roughly 1.12 lakh vehicles a day this year, against 1.09 lakh a day last year. On a daily basis, then, this Navratri was about 3% ahead of last year’s, not behind it.
Car Concern
The picture is less comfortable for cars. Passenger vehicle sales fell almost 22% against last year, from 2.34 lakh to 1.83 lakh. Even on a daily basis, the drop is around 14%.
Mr. Giridhar’s statement calls the overall dip “marginal” and “optical.” It does not mention the sharp fall in cars. Two-wheelers, which are about three-quarters of all sales, softened the overall number. Their fall versus last year was only 2.8%. The GST 2.0 rush appears to have lifted car sales last year far more than it lifted other categories.
EV Surge
The brightest spot is electrification. About 1.17 lakh electric vehicles were sold, up 26.78% on last year and 83% on 2024. They made up close to 10.5% of all festive sales, up from about 7.7% a year ago.
The growth is broad:
- Electric two-wheelers: 75,758 sold, up 33.4% on last year and 87% on 2024.
- Electric cars: 12,305 sold, up 26% on last year.
- Electric commercial vehicles: 1,288 sold, nearly double last year’s 657, though from a small base.
- Electric three-wheelers: 28,086 sold, up 10.5%. They remain the most electrified segment, at over 60% of all three-wheeler sales by my calculation.
Electric cars grew 26% even as overall car sales fell 22%. Their share of car sales rose from about 4.2% to about 6.7%. The FADA President says this shows that “India’s EV shift has become self-sustaining.”
Festive Outlook
FADA is now looking ahead to the Dhanteras-to-Diwali period. “We remain cautiously optimistic: affordability is strong, aspiration is rising,” he says. He describes auto retail as mirroring “the enduring momentum of the India Growth Story.”
