There are gaps in Tata Motors ' product portfolio in the domestic passenger vehicle market, Karl Slym, the company's MD acknowledged on Thursday. He said the company will aim to launch one new product each year in the long-term to bridge this gap.
The passenger car industry in India has been hit hard over the last one year as customers are not buying new cars due to expensive loans and rising fuel prices. But Tata Motors has been hit a lot harder, due to what many claim has been a lack of any significant new launch over the last few years.
The company has been keen to address that and appointed Karl Slym (earlier at General Motors) as its MD in August 2012. Last week, the company launched 8 new products , but all of them were only upgrades or variants of their existing products.
In comparison, there have been several new launches by competitors. Ford launched the Ecosport compact SUV on Wednesday. Chevrolet over the last few months has launched the Sail sedan and Enjoy MPV and Honda launched the diesel compact sedan Amaze among several other launches by car makers.
Slym told CNBC-TV18 that Tata Motors has a portfolio plan until 2020, and it will include new products in the medium-to-long term.
It aims to launch one new product each year in the long-term, he said.
An entirely new product from Tata Motors stable is expected sometime in 2015, till then the company will have to continue with refreshing its existing products.
While its domestic passenger car business has remained sluggish, Slym remained confident of continued strong double-digit growth at its British luxury Jaguar Land Rover unit.
On the commercial vehicle front, Slym said that the company has grown market share (now at 62 percent) despite new players entering the Indian market. However, the overall sluggish growth in the medium and heavy truck market (down 40 percent year-on-year) is expected to continue until there is a pickup in the overall economy.
Big fleet operators still have unutilised capacity and until that is filled, they are not going to go out and buy new trucks, Slym said.
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