Mahindra’s October had two stories in it, and they pulled in opposite directions. The SUV business posted its best month ever. The tractor business had one of its weaker months in a while. Put together, they tell you a lot about how India’s festive season actually played out this year.
Start with the headline. Mahindra and Mahindra posted record SUV sales of 73,338 units in October 2026, up 2 percent on the 71,624 units of October 2025, according to ETAuto and Autocar Professional, citing the company’s filings of 1 November. Total vehicle sales across all segments, including exports, reached 1,31,109 units, up 9 percent. The company called both figures the highest monthly volumes it has ever clocked, and its automotive president, R Velusamy, described October as a landmark month.
The record that almost hides in plain sight
A 2 percent rise does not sound dramatic, and that is precisely the point. Mahindra was growing from a base that was already enormous: October 2025 was itself a record month, fuelled by the first full month of GST 2.0 price cuts. Beating that base to post record SUV sales at all, in a month when retail registrations were soft across the industry, is the achievement. Including exports, total utility vehicle volumes stood at 74,904 units.
The rest of the auto business filled in around the SUVs. Domestic commercial vehicle sales below 3.5 tonnes grew 4 percent to 33,037 units, and three-wheeler sales, including electric models, jumped 38 percent to 17,632 units. Exports were the surprise package, surging 77 percent to 7,102 vehicles. Mahindra’s SUVs are finding buyers well beyond India now, and that export growth gives the company a cushion its domestic-only rivals do not have.
The other half of the month
Now the second story. Tractor sales fell 13 percent in October to 62,626 units, down from 72,071 a year ago, ETAuto reported. The company linked the decline to a festive calendar shift, and the April to October picture supports that reading: tractor sales for the first seven months of FY27 are still up 2 percent at 3,25,498 units. A single soft month inside a steady year is a timing story, not a demand collapse, though rural buyers clearly did not rush showrooms the way urban SUV buyers did.
That split, SUVs up and tractors down, is a useful corrective to any simple festive season narrative. India does not have one festive market. It has several, moving at different speeds, and October rewarded the urban SUV buyer far more than the rural tractor buyer.
What to watch from here
Two details from the company’s own comments matter for the months ahead. The first is the XUV 3XO ZNG, Mahindra’s first CNG vehicle, which Velusamy said has seen strong traction with customers. CNG opens the 3XO to buyers who want SUV road presence with running costs closer to a hatchback, and it puts Mahindra into a fight with the CNG versions of the Maruti Brezza and Tata Nexon. The second is the calendar year maths. Autocar Professional noted Mahindra had already dispatched 5,41,942 SUVs in January to September 2026, and with October added, the company is on course to pass 7,00,000 SUVs in a calendar year for the first time. Drive past a Mahindra showroom on a weekend and that scale stops looking abstract.
Rival Hyundai had its own record month, helped by its new Hyundai Bayon, and the two-wheeler side of the festive market had its own stories, including the updated KTM 200 Duke. But Mahindra’s October stands apart for one reason: it set a record while its second business, tractors, went backwards. That is not a company riding a wave. That is a company whose SUV franchise is now big enough to carry a bad month elsewhere and still post its best month ever.