Sales of Tata motors, the biggest unit by revenue of India’s largest conglomerate, Tata Sons, have accelerated in its home market, after years of decline.
Analysts attribute the improved performance, The Financial Times writes, “to a new generation of passenger vehicles that has overhauled a dated line-up, but they warn that Tata Motors still faces a forbidding challenge to make up lost ground in the increasingly competitive market.”
The division posted a profit of Rs2bn ($31m), turning round from a loss of Rs10bn a year before. It claimed passenger vehicle market share of 6.2 per cent for the period, ranking it fourth by volumes behind Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor and local rival Mahindra & Mahindra. This was still just half the level of 2012, but a pick-up from a trough of 4.6 per cent two years ago.
The company’s new chief executive, Guenter Butschek, a former chief operating officer at Airbus, took over in February 2016 following a two-year search. His predecessor died in an accident in 2014.
“I cannot imagine how it was possible to run the company for two years without a managing director,” Mr Butschek was quoted as saying. “That was certainly one of the contributing factors to why we have not been sufficiently aggressive, why decision-making took too long, why we provided too much space in the market to the competition.”