“Both dealers and component manufacturers also felt that it would have been easier to predict the ongoing slowdown in auto sales if retail numbers were reported, helping all in their inventory management and would have kept all better placed in facing these dynamic times,” Kale wrote in the letter.

FADA has been advocating this from November 2018 and many of its members have also done the same with their respective original equipment manufacturer (OEM’s) and have received a positive response of accepting it, given if it becomes an industrypractise, he added.

“Hence, I request you to please use your good offices to impress upon all the members of SIAM as well to report retail sales which is now available in VAHAN, instead of factory despatches and graduate to market share calculation of the industry and of dealer partners by registration data instead of wholesale despatches,” Kale noted.

As per the latest SIAM data, vehicle sales across categories, including passenger vehicles (PVs) and two-wheelers and commercial vehicles (CVs) saw steepest fall on record by 23.55 pc at 18,21,490 units in August as against 23,82,436 units in August 2018.