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Tata Motors unveils Manza variant, to up sales points

Tata Motors on Wednesday launched a new variant of its mid-size sedan Manza and said it will increase its sales and services networks by 200 each by end of FY 2013.

The leading carmaker will add 200 more service centres as well as an equal number of sales network by the end of the fiscal. This will take the overall sales outlets to 1,200 and service centres to 1,000, Tata Motors' newly appointed Managing Director [MD] Karl Slym told reporters here. On expectations from the festive season, Slym said, 'We will see some rise in sales in the season but not as much as last year.'

Admitting that the company saw some bad times in car sales in the recent past, Slym said we could not project the right worth of our cars to consumers. He said the company will continue to launch variants at regular intervals.

The newly launched Tata Manza Club Class is priced in the range of Rs 5.70 lakh [ex-showroom, Delhi for petrol] and Rs 6.49 lakh for diesel, and claims a mileage of 21.02 km per litre for diesel and 13.7 km per for the petrol model.

'With the Tata Manza Club Class, we offer an intelligent combination of style and pleasure of motoring with the traditional needs of space and comfort,' said Tata Motors President [Passenger Car Business Unit] Ranjit Yadav.     


EYES NO 2 SLOT, TO LAUNCH 6 MODELS IN A YEAR

Tata Motors said on Wednesday that it will launch six new products over the next one year. Launching a new version of its sports utility vehicle Safari Storme, priced between Rs 9.95 lakh and Rs 13.66 lakh, the company said that while its focus will be on the volumes segment, it will also continue to introduce new products in the fast growing SUV market. ‘In the next one year there will be six new offerings from us. It will be a mix of brand new models and refreshes,’ Tata Motors MD Karl Slym told reporters. The newly appointed MD said, ‘We see ourselves as a strong number two player and that is where my vision is for the short to medium term, and eventually become the number one in the long term.’ Currently the number one position in the passenger vehicle market is occupied by Maruti Suzuki India, followed by Hyundai Motor. There is a see-saw battle between Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra for the third position. Slym said Tata Motors needed some course correction in order to grow its sales. ‘We need to go to the market where the customers are. We have good products like Nano, Manza and Aria. But those are not selling well as much as we would like to because we are not there where the customers are.’ Asked about the company’s product portfolio strategy to challenge for the top spot, Slym said, ‘We need to have more presence in the volume segment, where 70 per cent of sales are from from small cars. Not only that we also need to be present in the SUV segment, where we have just introduced the Safari Storme to add to the existing Safari.’
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