After dip in Q1, Tata Motors' CV sales up 24% in Jul-Aug

Sales rose to 59,378 units in the two month period of 2017-18, from 47,750 units in year-ago period

Tata Motors, which is on a turnaround drive, saw its domestic commercial vehicles sales grow by 24.35 per cent in the July-August period after a decline of 15.62 per cent in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal.

The sales rose to 59,378 units in the two month period of 2017-18, from 47,750 units in the year-ago period.

In the April-June quarter of the current fiscal, the company's domestic CV sales had declined 15.62 per cent to 66,397 units, as against 78,693 units in the same quarter of 2016-17

"After a sluggish Q1, our commercial vehicles, in the domestic market grew by 15 per cent in July and 34 per cent in August over last year," Tata Motors Head - Commercial Vehicle Business Unit Girish Wagh said.

The growth has been on the back of ramp-up of BS4 production across segments, passing on the benefits of GST to consumers by price reduction along with increased imposition of restrictions on overloading, growing momentum in the infrastructure, mining and construction segments, he added.

Increasing acceptance of the company's selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology has increased demand in the medium and heavy CV segment, while the company performed strongly in the pickup and small CV segments driven by new products such as Yodha and XL ranges, he added.

"In line with our turnaround strategy, we will be introducing new products and will continue to undertake appropriate measures to improve our performance across segments," Wagh said.

With its new Chairman N Chandrasekaran paying more attention to addressing the bleeding domestic business, Tata Motors has embarked on a turnaround programme with the next 6 -9 months being critical as against an earlier planned business transition to be achieved on the next 2-3 years.

On a standalone basis, Tata Motors posted loss of Rs 467.05 crore for the June quarter of 2017-18 fiscal. It had registered a profit of Rs 25.75 crore in the same period of 2016-17.

In his address to company shareholders in the Annual Report for 2016-17, Chandrasekaran had said the company's performance also suffered due to sub-optimal execution and market misses.

"We have continued to lose market share in the commercial vehicles business, reaching 44.4% in March this year from a high of nearly 60%, five years back," he had said.

Last month, Tata Motors Managing Director Guenter Butschek had stated that the focus of the turnaround was on getting market share of 50 per cent in the CV segment by the end of this financial year by launching new products faster in the market.

The company has earmarked an investment of Rs 1,500 crore for 2017-18 for the CV segment with 10 new products lined up to be launched in the market. Out of these six will be in medium and heavy CV segments, while four products are in intermediate CV category.