Last week Tata Motors announced its financial report for the second quarter of this financial year and admitted that the performance was not as strong as anticipated.
The overall growth was driven by JLR, with the Range Rover Evoque and Range Rover Sport proving to be hot sellers.
The domestic sales of Tata passenger cars has taken a hit due to growing competition and a weak buyer sentiment in the first half of the fiscal and the company is reportedly pushing for a 6 product plan to have a strong second half.
Tata's domestic CV sales grew by 4.8% while the passenger car sales saw an increase of 11.6% compared to the same period last year but the improvement in the consolidated net profit stood at 10.55% which was lower than expected.
The operating margin of the domestic sales was a low 5.9% compared to the previous year's 7.2%. However, JLR had a profit margin of 14.8% in the second quarter thereby contributing 90% of the total profit of Tata Motors!
Speaking about the strategy to improve the domestic sales in the second half of the financial year, Mr. Karl Sylm, Managing Director of Tata Motors said, "We have a pipeline of new product launches in all segments, including refreshes. We will make sure we enter all segments that are currently driving the volumes."
Tata's new product plan could well include the recently launched Tata Manza Club Class sedan, the Ace facelift, Nano CNG and Indigo eCS CNG. The rest of the products are also expected to be facelifts or variants of the existing models.
[Source: DNAIndia.com]
