NEW DELHI -- Tata Motors Ltd. and Ashok Leyland Ltd. will introduce 15 new truck models as India's two biggest truck makers by sales seek to beat growing competition from global rivals such as AB Volvo and Navistar International Corp.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., speaks next to Tata Motors' Aria vehicles on display at the Auto Expo 2010 in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010.
"Our endeavour has been to launch new products and we have been launching almost 15 every year," Ravi Pisharody, president for Tata Motors' commercial vehicle business, told a news conference at the ongoing New Delhi Auto Expo. "We intend to do that in the next fiscal (year) as well."
Demand for trucks and buses in India crimped in the last financial year because of a slowing economy, stricter lending norms of financial institutions and reduced spending on infrastructure projects. Sales began to recover from July 2009, after declining for nine straight months, helped by a gradual recovery of the Indian economy, easier availability of loans and renewed purchases by fleet operators.
The Indian market's growth potential--mainly due to an expanding economy and crosscountry construction of highways--has led global truck makers such as Volvo, Navistar, MAN AG, Daimler AG and Scania AG to either sell imported trucks or make them in India.
Ashok Leyland plans to launch 15 new truck models under its new U-Truck platform by March 2011, B. Venkat Subramaniam, special director, future vehicles program, told Dow Jones Newswires. "The trucks will be between 16 tonners and 49 tonners."
Tata Motors' Pisharody said the company will introduce three new heavy trucks in India by March from its Prima range of so-called world trucks.
The company currently sells five trucks of the Prima series in South Korea and one model in India.
"No doubt it's (competition) something that we expected," Mr. Pisharody said. "But we are extremely well prepared with the world trucks."
"We intend to sell Prima trucks in many parts of the world and are in the process of identifying those markets," Mr. Pisharody said. "We want to have a presence across the globe with these trucks, but for that you need to have the right sales and service networks and the right partners."
Mr. Pisharody said the company will introduce vehicles from a new light truck platform in the next financial year. The trucks will have a load capacity of four tons to nine tons and will be produced at the Tata Motors factory at Pune in western India, he said.
"With the return of finance and liquidity, the light truck segment has responded very well," Mr. Pisharody said. "Medium and heavy segment took a little time to recover as they are more dependent on macro-economic factors such as the GDP (gross domestic product) and infrastructure development."
Tata Motors' domestic truck and bus sales rose 31% in the nine months through December to 255,168 vehicles.
"We expect the commercial vehicle business to be strong over the next 12 months," Mr. Pisharody said. "We might see a bit of slump (after March) because of pre-buying till March as new emission norms will come into place in April."
Tata Motors has raised prices of its heavy trucks and buses as well some variants of its Ace light truck by 1%, Mr. Pisharody said.
Ashok Leyland Managing Director R. Seshasayee said also the company will raise prices of its vehicles by March to offset rising input costs.
He said the company is expected to sell 62,000-63,000 commercial vehicles in the year through March 31 and that sales will grow in double-digits next year.
