India’s largest carmaker plans to report sales data based on its vehicle registrations on the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways’ (MoRTH) Vahan portal as it seeks to better match car supplies with on-ground demand, the people said. Maruti’s strategy is also expected to curb bogus retailing by dealers and usher greater transparency as dealers will henceforth earn incentives only based on their sales performance on Vahan, they added.
MG Motor India and Tata Motors are the only two mass carmakers who currently follow the practice of incentive pay out to dealers based on vehicle registrations.
Confirming the development, Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer, sales and marketing at Maruti Suzuki, said the company has initiated dialogue with other carmakers through industry body, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to switch to Vahan-based reporting as vehicle registrations and not factory despatches are the true reflection of demand.
“Vahan is an excellent initiative by the MoRTH. Today, everyone is reporting wholesale numbers which doesn’t give the correct picture as one is simply moving the stock from the factory to the dealer stockyard. We are also suggesting Siam to move in that direction,” said Banerjee.
As a first step, starting August, Maruti has linked monthly sales incentive payout to its dealers to Vahan registration data. Gradually, all other types of incentives earned by dealers will also be linked to Vahan sales data, said a person aware of the plans.