New Delhi: India’s biggest automaker Tata Motors is poised to make a mark on Thailand’s truck market this year, setting a sales target of 500 units for fiscal 2014 starting from April.
The company plans to import trucks made at its wholly-owned Tata Daewoo in South Korea in June, and those under the Tata brand from India in December.
Tata Daewoo (officially Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company) is a commercial vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. It is the second-largest heavy commercial vehicle manufacturer in South Korea.
The company was established in 2002 as Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Co Ltd, after it was spun off from parent Daewoo Motor Co Ltd. In 2004 it was acquired by Tata Motors.
Sanjay Mishra, Tata Thailand’s chief executive, said he believed Tata’s trucks are competitive and promising in the Thai market.
Despite the political impasse and adverse economic outlook Mr Mishra said Thailand’s overall truck demands remain stable at around 15,000 units this year.
For fiscal 2014, Tata aims to boost Thai sales to 7,000 units including locally made pickup trucks and imported passenger cars.
For fiscal 2013 ending March 31, Tata reported a 23.9% drop in Thai sales to 3,500 vehicles.
The decline was due mainly to weaker consumption and the expiry of the first-time car buyers scheme.
For 2012 and 2011, the company had sales of 4,597 and 4,586 units, respectively.
Tata Thailand currently runs a Samut Prakan assembly plant for pickup trucks, a joint venture with Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant Co, with an investment of 2 billion baht.
The plant makes 7,500 Zenon pickup trucks a year compared to a total production capacity of 15,000.
In October, the company plans to begin assembling the Super Ace, a commercial mini-truck, with an annual production of 2,400 units a year at an investment of 150 million baht.
Mr Mishra forecasts the mini-truck market will increase by 8.3% to 13,000 this year. Tata holds a 15% market share.
The pickup truck market, however, is expected to fall by 13.3% to 520,000 this year, with Tata taking a 4% market share.
According to Mr Mishra, Tata plans to introduce two passenger cars this fiscal year: the Nano, the world’s cheapest and smallest car, and a multipurpose vehicle, the Aria, both imported from India.
In fiscal 2015, Tata plans to make available its Safari Storme sports-utility vehicle, also imported from India.
Tata originally planned to launch the Nano, which runs on a 700cc engine, in the Thai market in 2012. But this was delayed because of the large number of Japanese eco-cars introduced to take advantage of the first-time car buyers tax rebate.
Tata will adjust certain specifications of the Nano to make it suitable for Thai customers, such as switching from manual transmission to automatic and raising the engine size to 1,000cc.
Ravindra Pisharody, executive drector of Commercial Vehicles Business Unit of India’s Tata Motors Ltd, said the Thailand assembly plant is Tata’s only production plant in Asean while Tata runs sales distribution in Indonesia with most cars imported from India.