Expect tractor industry holiday season sales to grow 8-10% this year: Escorts Kubota CFO
Tractor sales during the holiday months, from September to November, are expected to grow by 8-10 percent this year due to positive market sentiment for storm lifts, according to Escorts Kubota Ltd’s all-time managing director and CFO. Bharat Madan.
After a soft first half, the tractor industry is expected to gain momentum in the second half of the ongoing fiscal, growing in double digits, leading to a mid-single digit overall growth for the year, he told PTI.
“If you look at the months of the (holiday) season, which we usually count from September to November, we expect that it will increase by 8 to 10 percent this year compared to the months of last year,” said Madan.
He was answering a question about how tractor sales are going in the industry during the Christmas holidays. The festive months account for about 40-45 percent of the industry’s sales, he added, adding that this year, “in terms of volume, the industry will be somewhere around 3,25,000 tractors” this season.
Regarding the sale of tractors during the Christmas holidays, Madan said, “This time, since all the festivals came in October, September was a soft month. Besides, normally, the holiday season starts in September itself”.
At this time, as everything focused on October, he said, “So, we had a very good October for retail, and wholesale was very good, but September was muted. However, you will see a positive impact coming in Q3”.
Regarding the reason for the return of the market, he said, “After the good rains, we saw a good month of September, when a lot of stocking was done with channel partners, and October saw a very good growth in retail sales of almost more than 50. percent, which is a good sign”.
Madan said that a few months before September, the market was not good, either “flat or falling”. Regarding the outlook for the year, Madan said, “Although the first half was the worst for the industry, we expect the second half to grow by double digits, so that for the entire year, FY25, the tractor industry will grow. record the growth type of the middle digit and one”.
