Car registrations fell 22% this Navratri, but carmakers say deliveries were strong

Picture two scoreboards at the same cricket match. One says the team scored well. The other says the score fell by a fifth. Both are honest. They are just counting different things. That is what happened with car sales this Navratri.

On Wednesday, 21 October 2026, the dealers' body FADA released its Navratri numbers. Car registrations between 11 and 20 October fell 21.91% to 1,82,728 cars, from 2,34,004 cars in Navratri 2025. Yet on the same day, carmakers said their deliveries were robust. So who is right? Both, in their own way. Here is why.

First, what is FADA?

FADA is the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations. Dealers are the showrooms that sell you a car, a scooter or a tractor. FADA collects data from the government about how many new vehicles got registered. This time, it worked with the road transport ministry and gathered numbers from 1,468 of India's 1,469 RTOs. An RTO is the Regional Transport Office, the government office that gives every vehicle its number.

Delivery and registration are not the same thing

Think of buying a new phone versus getting a SIM card for it. Both are part of one purchase, but they happen at different counters, and each counter keeps its own list.

Booking: you pay some money to reserve a car. Like putting your name down for the last samosa batch.
Delivery: the dealer hands you the keys. Carmakers like to count these.
Registration: the RTO records the car in your name and gives it a number. FADA counts these, using the government's online system called Vahan.

Four steps: booking, delivery, registration at the RTO, and Vahan showing the record later — One car can show up in three different counts, at different times.

These three counts can move apart. A car booked today may be delivered weeks later. And one dealer told ET that Vahan captures registrations with a lag, so the real picture will show only after a few days.

Why did registrations fall so much?

The big reason is something called a high base. A base is the number you compare against. If you scored a century in the last match, even a solid 70 today looks like a drop.

Last year's Navratri was that century. It coincided with the rollout of GST 2.0, the new tax rates. FADA president Sai Giridhar told ETAuto that from 16 August to 21 September 2025, many people held back their purchases. They waited for 22 September so their bill and registration would get the new GST rates. All that waiting demand then poured into one window.

There was also a calendar difference. Navratri 2025 ran for 11 days. This year it ran for 10. Giridhar called the dip "largely optical", which means it looks bigger than it really is.

Before and after panels: 2,34,004 cars registered in Navratri 2025 versus 1,82,728 in Navratri 2026 — Fewer cars registered this Navratri, but last year was an unusual year.

Compare with Navratri 2024, the last normal year, and the story flips. Car registrations this year were 10.39% higher than the 1,65,534 cars of 2024.

What the carmakers said

Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest carmaker, said its Navratri deliveries were about 98% of last year. Its problem is not buyers. It is supply. Maruti gets 12,000 to 12,500 bookings a day but can supply only 8,000 to 8,500 cars. That leaves roughly 3,500 to 4,500 more bookings than cars every day. Its pending bookings grew to 2.7 lakh after Dussehra, from about 2 lakh at the start of October.

A big number counting up to 2.7 lakh pending Maruti bookings, with a bar rising beside a smaller 2 lakh bar — About 70,000 more Maruti cars joined the waiting list in a few weeks.

Think of a popular chai stall with a queue. Fewer cups served does not mean fewer people want chai. It can mean the kettle is too small.

Maruti also said its retail sales grew 35% between Ganesh Chaturthi and Dussehra, a longer window than Navratri alone.

Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles said it delivered over 50,000 vehicles during this festive period, including more than 10,000 on Dussehra alone.

Hyundai said its registrations during Shradh and Navratri grew 30% to nearly 41,000 units. Notice the trick here: Shradh plus Navratri is a longer stretch than the 10 days FADA counted.

Same company, different numbers

Data firm JATO Dynamics looked only at Navratri registrations of petrol, diesel and CNG cars at the top makers. Its numbers, shared with ET, show a mixed picture:

Maruti registered 74,387 cars, up 0.1%.
Tata Motors fell 16.4% to 24,843.
Hyundai fell 2.7% to 19,706.
Kia fell 9.3% to 9,731.
Mahindra and Mahindra rose 6.6% to 20,681.

So Hyundai's own number rose 30%, while JATO's count for Hyundai fell 2.7%. Both can be true because they cover different days. Tata's 50,000 deliveries and JATO's 24,843 registrations also cover different windows and counts. This is the lesson for any young reader: always ask what is being counted, and over which days.

The rest of the market

All vehicles together, including scooters, bikes, trucks and tractors, came to 11,23,086 units, down 6.52% from 12,01,479 last year. Two-wheeler registrations were 8,34,075, down 2.79%.

Electric vehicles went the other way. EV registrations of all kinds rose 26.78% to 1,17,437 units, about 10.5% of all vehicles sold. But Giridhar also said dealers selling EVs are finding that vehicles are not available, because of global supply troubles.

Here is a short news report from Zee Business on how Navratri vehicle sales went (in Hindi):

Watch on YouTube

What happens next?

Dhanteras and Diwali are still ahead. Hyundai's chief Tarun Garg expects momentum to continue through both. Maruti expects double-digit growth for the whole festive season till Diwali. And because Vahan updates late, the Navratri registration count may still change in the coming days.

So the next time a headline says sales crashed or soared, check three things: what was counted, over how many days, and what it was compared with.

Sources

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