 "M&M upbeat on pick-up segment")
The company had grown by 60 per cent in the pick-up segment last fiscal and the state at present accounts for nearly 10 per cent of M&M's national sales in the segment. The new Bolero Maxi Truck Plus which comes with a payload of 1150 kg has been designed keeping in mind the challenges in urban transportation.
Confident from a 40 per cent growth in pick-up sales last year and a 54 per cent market share, M&M has priced the new vehicle between Rs 4.3-4.4 lakh, around Rs 10,000 more from competitors like Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors.
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The company had sold close to 102,000 small and large pick-ups during 2012-13, and expects that the market for pick-ups will continue to grow. "A lot would depend on the monsoons and the overall economic situations, however, with modern trade picking up we expect this segment to continue to grow even this year," said Vivek Nayer, chief marketing officer, automotive division, M&M.
The company currently has a capacity to produce 135,000 units of pick-ups every year, and Nayer said that they had enough capacity for the moment. He, however, did not wish to comment on whether the company was working on developing new products in the segment.
Market sources, however, claim that Mahindra is working developing models customised to suit specific industry requirements in the commercial vehicle segment, like ones that can be used by cold-chain operators, and other logistics operations.
Mahindra currently has the Maxximo Truck in the mini-truck segment (0.75-0.85 tonnes), the Bolero Maxi Truck in the small pick-up segment (1-1.2 tonnes) and the Bolero Pick-up in the large pick-up segment (1.2-1.3 tonnes). Of these, the mini-trucks segment currently has the biggest market in India at approximately 250,000 units per annum (pa), followed by the small pick-ups (99,000 units pa) and large pick-ups (91,000 units pa).