Tata Motors looks to boost sales with product extensions

The company however said that they had not set any particular sales target

Tata Motors has kept things going for itself through what it calls product extensions and upgrades. Even when the original product has done well for the company, these upgrades have boosted sales for Tata Motors.

“What happened in the pandemic is that first-time car buyers have dramatically increased. People are increasingly prioritising buying a vehicle over many other spends. It is not only in the larger cities. And first-time car buyers increasingly prefer hatchbacks,” Vivek Srivatsa, Head – Marketing, PVBU, Tata Motors, told DH.

“For a first-time car buyer whether to go to work or travel to the home town in the interior, if one car has to do everything, it is a hatchback. We thought we bring in a different shade of the product," he added.

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Therefore, Tata Motors introduced the Tata Tiago NRG. “With the NRG, we can provide an ease of driving a hatchback, but it also provides good ground clearance and manages tough or mud roads. So, it is in a good sweet spot," he said.

“The NRG was launched in the market in 2018. It was in the market for a year or so. We did not upgrade it in the BS-VI era. In the pandemic, we had to delay the launch. Earlier, when we had the Tiago NRG, it was hugely successful. A lot of people in the big cities bought it. It had a good take rate in the smaller towns. And most importantly, it was affordable.

“The Tiago NRG is a product extension and not a replacement. The Tiago has been one of our top-selling cars. It is the car that scripted the turnaround for us starting in 2016. We have sold 3.5 lakh Tiago cars. It is the most sold and recognised Tata Motors car so far," he further explained.

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Asked what sales figure the company had in mind, he said: “We don’t have numbers in mind. We had Tiago NRG in the portfolio earlier, and it used to contribute eight to 10 per cent of the overall sales of Tiago. We should be able to replicate that."

Tata Motors is now having extensions of other products as well. Asked if they are going on a product offensive, Srivatsa said: “It is part of the product strategy that we undertook. One of the reasons for our market share growth is the upgradation of our products and bringing newer versions and extensions. Not only the Tiago but across products, we have kept doing that. Dark is a good example, and we have met with a lot of market success. In the coming months, you will see two or three product extensions coming up".

Replying to a question on the performance after the second wave, he said: “Customers are showing their preference for Tata Motors, and saleswise, we are enhancing our market share month on month. We are in a good position. We faced many challenges around the second wave, both from operating the plant and the demand situation. Fortunately, we have come on the right side despite the pandemic.”