Chennai:
Ashok
Leyland, the Hinduja Group flagship, has reported a 10 per cent fall in net
profit at Rs 565.98 crore as compared to last year’s Rs 631.30 crore due to
turbulent growth in southern region.
Addressing a press conference, company’s managing director
Vinod K Dasari and chief financial officer K Sridharan said the profits fell as
its strongest market-- south India was “depressed”.
“We were hit from many sides. Our strongest market south
was depressed. Also segments like intermediate commercial vehicle (ICV) in
which we are not strong grew substantially. We have, however, rebounded and
gained market share in March and continued the good showing in April and hope
to keep this momentum,” they said.
Dasari
also said the company registered a 14.9 per cent rise in sales turnover
clocking sales of Rs 12,841.99 crore during 2011-12 as compared to Rs 11,177.11
crore the previous year.
He also said a a memorandum of understanding (MoU) is
signed with the Tamil Nadu government to invest a total of Rs.4,150 crore to be
shared by Ashok Leyland as well as a joint venture with Nissan Motor Company.
“We have been offered 380 acres of land for the project,” said Sridharan.
He
said the company is targeting sales of more than 100,000 units medium and heavy
commercial vehicles (M&HCV) and 36,000 units of the Dost light commercial
vehicle (LCV), which has been a huge success.
Dasari
also said the company’s efforts to protect their bottomline through focus on
non-cyclical or support businesses yielded rich dividends with leyparts, the
spare parts business, growing aggressively by 20 per cent and both the defence
and power solutions businesses able to hold their own.
The company currently is planning to roll out
innovative products like Jan Bus and the 10x2 and with a planning to boost its
products through the new brand ambassador Indian cricket team captain Mahender
Singh Dhoni
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