Grand I10: Grand i10, Swift, most popular used cars in India: Diesel losing out, automatics in demand

While the Indian auto industry is on a boom in 2023, the used vehicles market is also having a fantastic year in terms of sales. According to a quarterly report, 63 percent of first time car buyers are now moving into the pre-owned segment. This was 6 percent higher than Q2 2023, where 57 percent of pre-owned segment customers were first time car buyers.Moreover, change in government policies seems to have also affected the demand for diesel cars in the used market as well, with 80 percent of used car buyers going in for petrol cars. The data collected by Spinny, a used car market place, further showed that the average age of pre-owned car buyers was 32 and that women car buyers now contributed to 32 percent of demand.

What’s popular, what’s not:
According to data collected in Q3 2023, the Hyundai Grand i10, Maruti Suzuki Swift and the Renault Kwid hatchbacks are the top-selling models in the preowned market. Among these, with, silver and grey were the top colour choices among customers. Overall, customers in the used car segment prefer Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda as the top three brands and the demand for automatic cars has also increased. Popularity of online purchase of a used car has also seen a big rise, with 70 percent of bookings taking place online and 32 percent customers opting in for home delivery, end-to-end digital transactions have also increased by 21 percent.

Among different segments, the compact SUV and the hatchbacks are in high demand among used car buyers. Demand for luxury brands such as Jeep, BMW and Mercedes-Benz also saw consistent growth with the BMW X1 SUV and Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan scoring top positions.
However, in light of the 10 year ban on diesel cars, demand for diesel pre owned vehicles has been on the lower side with over 80 percent used car buyers going with petrol cars. This also means that residual value of diesel cars will take a hit in the times to come. In terms of the ongoing festive season, Spinny reports that it sold over 2,300 cars during the 9-day Navratri festival itself, with 600 deliveries taking place on the first day. The trend is expected to continue during Dhanteras and Diwali festivals as well.