M&M, TaMo cut output to align with demand

Auto majors Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) are suspending automobile manufacturing in order to adjust production with market demand. M&M on Friday said it would be suspending production for 8-14 days in the ongoing quarter.

Home-grown auto majors Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) are suspending automobile manufacturing in order to adjust production with market demand.

While M&M on Friday said it would be suspending production for 8-14 days in this quarter, Tata Motors confirmed taking steps to align manufacturing with tapering demand. In a filing, M&M said it would be observing ‘no production days’ in various plants for 8-14 days during the second quarter of 2019-20.

A Tata Motors spokesperson said: “As indicated earlier, external environment remains challenging, leading to demand contraction. We have aligned our production to actual demand and adjusted the number of shifts and contractual manpower”.

The companies are announcing production suspension at a time when the domestic auto industry has been going through one of the longest sales slumps.

In April-July, M&M’s total domestic vehicles sales dipped 8 per cent to 161,604 units as against 175,329 units in the year-ago period.

Overall sales of the company, including exports, were also down 8 per cent during the period at 171,831 units as compared to 187,299 units in AprilJuly period of the last fiscal. On Thursday, auto components maker Jamna Auto said it may suspend production at all its manufacturing facilities this month due to poor demand from customers.

On Wednesday, Maruti Suzuki India said it had cut its production in July — for sixth month in a row — by 25.15 per cent. Similarly, auto components major Bosch said it would temporarily stop production at its two plants separately this month for a total of 13 days to “avoid unnecessary build-up of inventory”.

The auto industry has been going on a prolonged slump. Passenger vehicles segment has been the worst hit with sales continuing to decline for almost a year now. According to Siam data, vehicle wholesale across all categories declined 12.35 per cent to 6,085,406 units in April-June 2019 against 6,942,742 units in the same period of last year.