FM Blames Millennials for Low Auto Sales: #BoycottMillennials Trends on Social Media; Cars Are No Longer A Status Symbol?

If you are active with the meme culture, you must be finding loads these days on how the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman believes that millennial are the main reason for auto sales’ slowdown. The base story might be different, we’ll cover tat in a bit but the memes and the heightened parody that follows has no stopping.

Speaking of, we have kept you well updated of the worsening auto sales in the country. It has never hit such low standards, since 1997-98. The government has been working very hard and tirelessly to lift off the burden from India’s sinking automobile sector but so far all we are getting to hear is bad news.

Standing at an elevated point of reference today there is not just a single reason that has led to this slump in sales of automobile but a combined result of many policies which led to such a disaster. However, our FM, Sitharaman has a different point of view of the whole scenario.

FM Believes Millennial is the Reason for Auto Slowdown

 There are a list of reasons for automobile sale to have fallen down. Some of them are

• Registration fee for new vehicles
• Heightened GST
• Shift to Electric Vehicles
• Rise in prices of vehicles was due to BSVI compliant engine and many more.

However, as per Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the mindset of millennials to not wanting to pay an Equated Monthly Installment, EMI while buying a new automobile but preferring cab aggregators such as Ola and Uber or a Metro, is one of the major reasons contributing towards the current auto sales slump.

She included this in one of her speeches on Tuesday, at an event held in Chennai. Her comments went viral and resulted in the hashtag #BoycottMillennials, which people used with jokes and memes.

The measures to which this statement twirled and presented itself in memes and jokes were endless and not to mention, really funny too.

Cars are No Longer Status Symbol

The millennial today believes in time is money. In cities like Bangalore and Gurgaon, the traffic kills the ease of travel for many, resulting in jams and congestion, leading to major waste of time. People are also beginning to value the ill-effects of pollution, hence opting for sharing vehicles. These factors are preventing people from buying cars in metro cities, where they just prefer to use them for weekend getaways.

With a bias for renting against buying, younger generations find renting a car suitable. The trend of families owning cars for a social status is changing. “Social barriers are breaking. My friends who could not think of getting off their Mercedes are happily taking Ola-Uber,” says a 25 year office goer working in Bangalore.

This means automakers must quickly manoeuvre for a previously unfathomable future where every Indian family that can afford a car won’t necessarily buy one. In order to do something about their sluggish pace in sales, the industry will have to change according to the changing trends.

Passenger Vehicles Sale Fall Worst Since 1997-98

India’s monthly passenger vehicle and car sales recorded their steepest fall ever in August highlighting the continued slowdown in the sector. It recorded the worst decline since 1997-98, as per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

• Passenger vehicle sales fell 31.57% year-on-year to 196,524 units in August, for 10 straight months
• passenger car sales fell 41.09% to 115,957 units, as compared to 196,847 sold in the same month last year
• Utility vehicles sales saw a decline of 2.2%, selling 71,478 units as compared to 73,085 last year.
• The van segment recorded a scary drop of 47.36%, selling only 9,089 units, while last year’s number was 17,266 units.
• Two-wheeler sales saw a decline of 22.24% with 1,514,196 units sold this year, against 1,947,304 sold in August 2018.
• Medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales declined by 54.3% with 15,573 units sold compared to 34,073 units last year.
• Light commercial vehicle sales fell down by 28.21% with 36,324 units sold compared to 50,595 units last year.