Tata Motors hits country roads for pickup sales

Company expects growth in rural markets, small towns

Tata Motors’ commercial vehicles division, banking on prospects in the pickup business, is aiming at pushing its presence in rural markets and small towns.

The company, which has recently launched the BS IV variant of its pickup, ‘Super Ace Mint’, plans to sell more pickup offerings in rural areas. Currently, the company has around 600 3S (sales, service and spares) centres, besides 1,100 sales touchpoints, where pickups and small commercial vehicles (SCVs) are sold.

“We anticipate growth in the rural markets for pickups — in the range of 40-45 per cent — and our focus is on reach and penetration there. We also want to target towns below 50,000 population over the next five years,” Tata Motors Senior Vice President (Commercial Vehicles Business Unit) R Ramakrishnan said on Tuesday.

Demand for the Tata Ace CV and pickups is more in the urban areas, but the company is targeting the small markets since around 25 per cent of its touchpoints are in towns below 100,000 population.

According to SIAM, a pickup is defined as a commercial vehicle in the 2 tonne-3.5 tonne range. Unlike in the US, a pickup in India is not a lifestyle or personal-use product, but a nearly 100 per cent commercial vehicle.

In the first 11 months of the current year, around 160,000 pickup sales have been logged, and Tata holds 12 per cent market share. “Our strategy is to provide the market with differentiated products, better reach, resale, availability of spares, and good inhouse finance options. We certainly want to do better than 12 per cent,” Ramakrishnan told Deccan Herald.

“After-sales is an important aspect, since commercial vehicles operate over rough, long distances. Also, the largest part of transactions happens at the resale point, which we will develop so as to build and retain a robust, dependable customer base,” he added.

The slowdown towards the end of 2011-12 affected the commercial vehicles sector, especially truck-makers, which continued into 2012-13 and 2013-14. SCV owners were also affected. Due to low growth, financial delinquency and low industrial productivity, banks viewed SCVs as NPAs, and avoided lending loans for their purchase.

But the company is optimistic about its pickup business. Apart from Super Ace Mint, it manufactures the high-end Xenon, and Ramakrishnan hinted at more products in the coming year.