Tata Motors to turn around domestic biz

Tata Motors will focus on turning around the domestic business, particularly the CV segment which has suffered due to a challenging environment as also the company's sub-optimal execution and market misses, its Chairman N Chandrasekaran said Tuesday. Addressing shareholders of the company for the first time after taking over as Chairman, he also expressed regret over its inability to pay dividends due to losses in the domestic business and said it is working "with tremendous urgency" to deal with the matter.

"Looking ahead, we expect the business environment to remain dynamic and unpredictable. Our clear focus is the turnaround of the domestic business," he said at Tata Motors' Annual General Meeting here Tuesday. In 2016-17, he said, Tata Motors' standalone gross revenues was at Rs 49,100 crore, up 3.6 per cent from the previous year. The loss after tax, on a standalone basis, was Rs 2,480 crore compared to Rs 62 crore in the previous year. Elaborating on the reasons for the dismal performance of the company's domestic business, Chandrasekaran said the commercial vehicles (CV) business faced challenging and uncertain environment due change over to the GST regime, demonetisation and "unexpected Supreme Court ruling on BS 3 to BS 4 migration".

"On the other hand, the company's performance also suffered due to suboptimal execution and market misses. We have continued to lose market share in the commercial vehicles business, reaching 44.4 per cent in March this year from a high of nearly 60 per cent, five years back," he said. Tata Motors' CV volumes have remained more or less constant at around 3,20,000 vehicles, over the past three years, while the operating costs have gone up over time, Chandrasekran added. "This has impacted the performance of the company this year," he said. On plans to reverse the situation, Chandrase-karan said: "In CV, we are focused on ensuring that all product launches happen within our laid down timelines without any delay.”