(This story originally appeared in on Apr 13, 2018)

Top-gear growth in sales of cars and SUVs has led to India becoming the fourthlargest passenger vehicle (PV) market globally for the first time ever, unseating Germany, in January and February 2018. With sales of 5,60,806 units in the first two months of calendar 2018, India overtook Germany’s tally of 5,31,100 units. As a result, India is now behind China, US and Japan in the global pecking order with Germany in the fifth position, followed by Brazil and France.According to a study by SIAM , while China continued to dominate with sales of nearly 4 million units in January and February 2018, US at number two with 8,18,882 units and Japan at number 3 with 7,41,385 units saw significant contraction.Germany’s slip was predicted by its automotive industry body VDA earlier. According to VDA, Germany is predicted to see a 2% contraction in its 3.4-million unit sales in 2018, while India is expected to see a 10% increase in the same period.Accordingly, India should hit around 3.6 million units in 2018 sales, exceeding Germany’s tally for the full calendar as well. India is also the only market in the top four that is on the growth track and is predicted to see a sharp increase in sales. Others like the US and Japan are likely to be flat or negative, and even China was flat in the first two months of 2018. The VDA prediction puts China’s 2018 tally at 25 million units, followed by the US at around 17 million and Japan at 4.3 million. The EU’s cumulative numbers are expected to be 15.6 million units.Domestic auto experts concur. “The PV market is expected to witness 8-10% growth in FY18, helped by new model launches and favourable macroeconomic environment, with GDP growth rate expected to improve in the second half of FY18, and recovery in rural income,” said EY partner and automotive sector leader Rakesh Batra.