 "Ashok Leyland reports loss of Rs 142 cr in Q1")
Hinduja Group owned commercial vehicle major Ashok Leyland on Tuesday reported a net loss of Rs 141.75 crore for the first quarter ending June 30, 2013 as the company announced it has undertaken an internal drive to cut costs in capital expenditures due to poor market conditions.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 66.93 crore during the same period of previous fiscal.
Announcing the results, Ashok Leyland Chairman Dheeraj P Hinduja, however, sounded confident that the cost-cutting measures would result in good returns in the years ahead.
“Last year the whole industry has fallen by 25 per cent.
[caption id=“attachment_962017” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption]
This year in the first quarter we are seeing a decline of 12 per cent already,” he said at the company’s 64th Annual General Meeting.
“Looking at the (market) condition, the management has taken huge initiatives in cutting costs, capital expenditure and most of the capital expenditures have already gone in. The years ahead, as the economy holds up, you will see, very good returns from Ashok Leyland as our capex are cut, and at the same time, there is an internal drive to see how far can we cut these costs further,” he said.
Hinduja said the company was also eyeing new overseas markets and had established its first sales office in Nigeria as part of the initiative.
Responding to a shareholder’s query, he said, “The overall market share (of the company) during last year gained by three per cent from 23.5 per cent to close to 26.5 per cent” in the commercial vehicle market.
“What we are experiencing is one of the harshest and steepest of downturns and while we are combating it, the situation also affords us an opportunity to streamline our processes towards becoming a leaner and far more customer-oriented organisation.”, Ashok Leyland Managing Director Vinod K Dasari said.
The Chennai-based company registered a turnover of Rs 2,363.81 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 as against Rs 3,026.89 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
Meanwhile, hot on the heels of its worst first quarter results in nearly a decade, Ashok Leyland, on Tuesday, unveiled its latest shot at reversing the flagging fortunes of the commercial vehicles industry, the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) Stile. With this, Ashok Leyland entered thepassenger vehicle segment in India. The product, developed by a joint venture (JV) between Ashok Leyland and Nissan-Renault Alliance, is the second product of the JV after Dost, a 1.5-tonne LCV which was launched in September 2011.
With inputs from PTI
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