Ashok Leyland sheds 3% as it declares non-working days across units

Shares of commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland slipped up to 2.8 per cent to Rs 62.1 apiece on the BSE on Monday after it announced no working days at various manufacturing plants for September, due to the continued weak demand for its products.

The company's Pantnagar plant will have as many as 18 non-working days in September, while the Ennore unit would have 16. The Alwar and Bhandara plants would have 10 non-working days each, while Hosur 1 and 2 and CPPs will have five such days, the company informed the exchanges. READ HERE

Ashok Leyland has been adjusting producion since the past few months due to continuing sluggishness and contraction in the commercial vehicle market. Previously, the Chennai headquartered automaker said it would be observing five non-working days starting from September 6, 2019, at its Chennai plant.

The Indian auto industry witnessed its worst ever monthly sales decline in over two decades in August. The decline has been the worst decline since 1997-98. The percentage sale of two-wheelers is also at a three-year low.  

According to data released by industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), on Monday, domestic passenger vehicle sales fell for the tenth straight month in August, declining 31.57 per cent to 1,96,524 units from 2,87,198 units in the year-ago period. Of this, domestic car sales were down 41.09 per cent to 1,15,957 units as against 1,96,847 units in August 2018.
 

Sales of commercial vehicles -- a metric to gauge agricultutral activities in the country -- were down 38.71 per cent to 51,897 units in August, SIAM said.

Last week, India's biggest auto-marker, Maruti Suzuki India, decided to shut down two of its plants — Gurugram and Manesar for two days. 

At 1:10 pm, the stock was trading 1.4 per cent lower at Rs 63, as against a 0.6 per cenr rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. About 1.86 crore shares changed hand on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report. The Nifty Auto index, which slipped 1.5 per cent intra-day, pared losses and was trading 0.43 per cent higher at 7,133 level. Four of the 15 constituents in the index were trading in the red, while 11 advanced at the index.