Homegrown automaker Tata Motors whose portfolio includes affordable commercial vehicles as well as premium brands like Jaguar and Land Rover on Wednesday posted a loss of ₹1,009.49 crore for the quarter ended September. This is in comparison to a profit of ₹2,501.67 crore posted by the company in the same quarter last year. The fall comes in the wake of the poor performance of its British subsidiary, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).
JLR reported a loss of €101 million for September quarter and its revenue declined 11% to €5.6 billion. The luxury brand—which contributes almost 90% to Tata Motors' revenue—has long been affected because of uncertainty around Brexit and lower operating profits at JLR. Tough market conditions in China is also touted as one of the major contributing factors—dragging its sales to 1,29,887 units, a drop of 13.2%.
“In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover. Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programs to deliver cost and cash flow improvements of £2.5B over the next 18 months,” said Ralf Speth, chief executive, Jaguar Land Rover.
Tata Motors said that for JLR, market conditions have deteriorated, particularly in China. “To weather this volatile external scenario, we have launched a comprehensive turnaround plan to significantly improve our free cash flows and profitability. The leadership team at JLR is in mission mode to achieve the deliverables under this plan,” said N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company, said in a statement.
However, Tata Motors’ all-around performance hasn’t been all bad. Its total income rose to ₹72,729.30 crore in the second quarter as compared to ₹70,344.76 crore as compared to same quarter last year, said Tata Motors in a regulatory filing.
“The Tata Motors domestic business continued to deliver strong improvement in operational and financial performance by implementing the Turnaround 2.0 strategy effectively. We have improved our market shares whilst delivering robust improvement in profitability in both the Commercial Vehicles and Passenger Vehicles and generated positive Free Cash flows,” Chandrasekaran added.
The company credits Tata Motors’ innovation and product improvement strategies for the improvements in numbers. According to the company, the growth of commercial vehicles was driven by increased demand and continued economic growth, newly launched products, and improved stakeholders’ engagement.
“The continued improvements were made possible due to a robust product and innovation pipeline, strong market activation, rigorous cost reductions and structural process improvements. Most importantly the entire organisation is on its toes and working to embed the Turnaround culture as our new way of life,” Guenter Butschek, CEO and MD, Tata Motors, said.
The results were announced after the markets closed. Tata Motors’ shares on Wednesday closed 0.76% higher on the BSE at ₹178.65. The benchmark Sensex closed at 34,442.05 points, 1.63% higher than the previous day.
