Note Ban, GST, BS-IV Norms Dent Pre-Owned Car Market: Report

The demonetization coupled with GST and BS-IV norms seem to have made a dent in the domestic pre-owned car market with the segment growing six per cent lesser in the previous fiscal against the projected growth of 15 per cent, as per an industry report. However, at the same time, the Centre's decision in November last year to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which were subsequently replaced with new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, and greater access to credit have allowed for increased finance penetration in the organized segment, Indian Bluebook, a vehicle pricing research platform, said in a report released today.

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The 3.6 million pre-owned car markets grew at nine per cent as the demonetization reduced market size by two lakh units or an estimated six per cent of the overall used car sales market, it said. Over the past year, the market has been hit by significant "jolts" in the form of three major market reforms -- demonetization, BSIII/BSIV and GST, it said.

"While these reforms have no doubt disrupted the status quo, they have necessitated that all stakeholders change with the times and become more organized," Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd's managing director and chief executive officer Nagendra Palle said at the launch of the second edition of 'India Pre-Owned Car Market Report' 2017.

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"Notwithstanding the short term hiccups, we strongly believe these market reforms are good for the organized industry in the long term," he said. Mahindra First Choice Wheels is Mahindra group's pre-owned vehicle selling arm.

According to the report, the current GST regime imposes a significantly higher burden on the dealer - on a pan-India basis - roughly twice the rate that was otherwise being incurred.

As per the report, in 70 per cent of states, dealers will have to pay higher taxes post-GST, compared to the old tax regime but the current GST structure is expected to give a fillip to C2C transactions. The highly fragmented pre-owned car market is divided into four categories -- the organized, semi-organized, unorganized and consumer-to-consumer market.

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While the organized category accounts for 15 per cent of the total market pie, the semi-organized market accounts for 6 per cent of all used car sales in the country. The unorganized market commands a 17 per cent share in the overall sales and the consumer to consumer market 32 per cent of the total pie.

The report also noted that the pre-owned car market continues to organize rapidly with both organized and semi- organized segments growing by 36 per cent and 12 respectively by volume, while C2C and unorganized segments have remained flat.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)