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Our Bureau

Mumbai, Jan. 30 Tata Motors has posted a loss of Rs 263 crore for the third quarter of the current fiscal, compared to a profit of Rs 499.05 crore in the same period last year.

Net revenue was also down to Rs 4,758.62 crore, a 35 per cent fall from the preceding period’s level of Rs 7,251.83 crore. There was also a foreign exchange loss of Rs 227 crore.

While commercial vehicle sales showed a decline of 61 per cent compared to the same period last year, the passenger car sales dropped 14 per cent. “It was an unprecedented quarter where we have seen severe contraction of demand caused by lack of liquidity and high interest rates,” said the Chief Financial Officer, Mr C. Ramakrishnan .

The Managing Director, Mr Ravi Kant, concurred with this view. “What we saw in the last quarter was something that happened so suddenly and on such a great magnitude that it took everyone by surprise. We see a positive trend for the present quarter,” he said. The company’s overseas operations were also affected by the overall global slowdown. Its Korean arm, Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicles saw profits fall 21 per cent and sales 35 per cent.

Similarly, the UK-based Jaguar Land Rover which it acquired last year, was hit by a 35 per cent fall in volumes to 49,000 units (76,000). The silver lining in the cloud was that Jaguar volumes were up to 15,000 units while Land Rover crashed to 34,000 units. Mr Kant said Tata Motors was hopeful of a better fourth quarter thanks to better finance availability, impact of reduced commodity costs as well as a Rs 1,000 crore cost reduction programme over the next three years. The capital expenditure is also being pruned by Rs 800 crore during this period.

“We are already seeing an upturn in demand and will follow these measures proactively through February and March," Mr Kant said.

However, he cautioned that the key to the Centre’s recently announced stimulus package working lay in "solid execution of all the measures."

More Stories on : Financial Performance | HCV/LCV/Tractors | Tata Motors Ltd

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