Tata Motors aims to grow faster in FY19; non metros to be main driver

New Delhi: Homegrown automobiles manufacturer Tata Motors is expecting faster growth in financial year 2018-19, compared to the last fiscal, S N Barman, Tata Motors VP, Sales, Marketing and Customer Support, Passenger Vehicle business unit told ETAuto.

The carmaker is betting big on the rural market and younger customer to drive the growth. Barman also informed that the company will add 100 new dealerships this year to push the targeted growth. The company currently has 746 outlets across India.

“Tata Motors had a very fast paced growth of over 35 per cent in the non-metro or smaller cities compared to about 25 per cent rise in sales in the metros,” said Barman.

He added that rich features and fresh styling of Tiago and Nexon has got great acceptance among the young buyers. He claimed that over 60 per cent of its customers were in the age group of 30-35 years.

The company is putting strong thrust on rural markets by reaching out in every village, schools etc to capture the rural buyers.

“We are expecting to sell at least 75,000 cars in the villages and this we would be doing by targeting at least 75,000 villages while we also expect to touch at least 30000 higher secondary schools in the rural areas,” he maintained. India has over 6 lakh villages and close to 97,000 government higher secondary schools.

The carmaker is also strongly looking at digital platform to market it products. “Our 70-80 percent buyers first have digital interaction with our products,” he said.

Tata Motors passenger vehicles sales in the domestic market in the April 2017-March 2018 period witnessed a growth of 22 per cent at 187,321 units compared to 153,151 units mainly on the back of increase in demand of Tiago and Tigor along with Nexon and Hexa gaining traction in the steadily growing UV Segment. The company has recently launched the Nexon AMT.

(Pritish Raj contributed to this article)