'Bolt' key to Tata Motors' aim of double digit growth in FY16

On a comeback trail to regain its position in the Indian car market, Tata Motors is banking on new products such as upcoming compact car Bolt and better customer satisfaction efforts as it eyes double-digit sales growth in the next fiscal.
With the company's new compact sedan Zest receiving good response from the market, Tata Motors is upbeat about continuing the sales growth momentum in the coming months keeping in mind the favourable economic conditions.
"The last three months have been good for us in terms of sales. There is a huge traction for Zest and we had bookings of 5,000 units last month," Tata Motors President (Passenger Vehicle Business) Mayank Pareek told PTI.

With the Bolt slated for launch on January 22, he said the company will have another new quality product to add to the sales momentum.
"Bolt will have many features which are usually found in luxury cars. What we are trying to do is make those luxury features affordable and available to our customer," Pareek added.
Features like multi-mode drive that allows a driver to set the engine response depending on driving needs like in-city, economy or sports (faster); safety features such as dual airbags, and audio system usually found in cars like Audi, Jaguar or Mercedes are part of the Bolt, he said.

In order to enhance customer experience, he said Tata Motors is also stepping up efforts to make it better with Bolt than what it had done for Zest.

"Together with our dealers, we have trained 1,276 people exclusively for Bolt on both soft and hard skills and how to deal with customers better. We are putting in a lot of learnings from the past into it," Pareek said.
Bullish on the steps yielding the desired results for the 2015-16 fiscal, Pareek said: "The industry is expected to grow in double digits and Tata Motors will be better than the industry growth."

He said the company's existing models, including the Nano and Vista, are also expected to pick up sales momentum.
Pareek said favourable factors such as lower crude oil prices and buoyancy in the economy and the likelihood of interest rate cuts augur well for auto sales.
The company's cumulative sales of all passenger vehicles in the domestic market for the April-December period this fiscal stood at 92,227 units, lower by 11 per cent over the previous fiscal.
In December 2014, Tata Motors had reported a 30 per cent growth in passenger vehicles sales at 12,040 units, compared to 9,272 units in the December 2013.

Tata Motors had fallen behind the likes of Honda, Toyota and Mahindra & Mahindra in the Indian passenger vehicles market from being the third largest player at one point of time as its products, including the Nano, failed to deliver.