Tata Motors to focus on strengthening core biz: Chandra at AGM

Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran, during the company's 78th annual general meeting, says Tata Motors is strengthening its core businesses, accelerating innovation, simplifying, and unlocking efficiencies while becoming future-ready and sustainable.

He also talks about the company's performance, its business strategy, and the transformation of the automotive industry to make mobility safer, smarter, and greener in the country.

"The challenging times we faced in the last few years have made the company more resilient. Our business - commercial vehicles and Jaguar Land Rover, are delivering well on their strategies and poised to lead transformation in the automotive industry," says Chandra.

According to Chandra, Tata Motors will continue to remain focused on executing its strategy to deliver growth, profitability, and free cash flow consistently.

Chandrasekaran has already announced an ambitious target for Tata Motors to achieve zero net debt by March 2024, and the next remaining three quarters of this financial year are considered to be crucial for the automobile giant valued at around ₹2.3 lakh crore.

However, despite his resilience, the company’s ongoing investments in the domestic business and JLR could impose hurdles in reducing the overall debt, say analysts.

The net debt of Tata Motor’s automotive division fell to ₹41,700 crore in June 2023 from ₹43,700 crore in March. It was ₹48,700 crore in March 2022. The company’s domestic automobile business has a debt of ₹8,200 crore, while the debt at JLR stood at ₹25,700 crore in June.

Tata Motors also has big plans for its EV division. For the start, it planning to open separate showrooms for electric vehicles in cities where EV volumes have reached a certain level. More than 49% of the sales of Tiago EVs are coming from other than the top 20 cities, according to Shailesh Chandra, managing director, of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd. This comes at a time when passenger vehicle EV wholesales in India touched nearly 27,000 for the first time in the June quarter.

Tata Motors Ltd (TML) reported a net profit of ₹3,203 crore for the April-June 2023-24 quarter against a net loss of ₹5,007 crore in the same quarter last year on the back of all automotive verticals delivering strong performances.

Tata Motors' consolidated revenue surged 42% year-on-year to ₹1,02,200 crore, while EBITDA was at ₹14,700 crore (up 177% YoY) and EBIT margin came out to be 8.1%, up 880 bps, all showing a sharp improvement driven by JLR and commercial vehicle businesses, while the PV business was steady.

The Tata Motors stock is trading 0.39% up today at ₹396.10 on the BSE.