Premier to focus on niche segments

The country's second oldest automobile manufacturer Premier Automobile Ltd is making a modest comeback with complete restructuring of its operations. To start with, the company has been renamed as Premier Ltd, with effect from April 1, 2005.

The company's top management had decided to stay within the automobile sector, but will focus on three niche segments. The offerings in the automobile segment will be for the time being restricted to two products, a diesel multi-purpose vehicle Sigma and 2-tonne light commercial vehicle Roadstar.

The company will also focus on two other segments in the engineering sector, the machine tool and automotive component engineering business. In the first full year of the restructured operations, 2005-06, Premier Ltd is expected to clock sales of Rs 200 crore, half of which will come from the automobile sector and the other half from two other business segments.

Speaking to Business Standard, the company's head of sales and marketing, Atul Akolkar, said, "Since we do not have deep pockets to take on the MNCs head on, we will create a niche segment for ourselves. The diesel multi-purpose vehicle Sigma will be positioned as one. We also have the 2-tonne Roadstar for light commercial vehicle segment."

The new plant at Chinchwad, near Pune, started commercial production in the third quarter of the previous financial year. By August this year, Premier expects production to be increased to 1,000 units a month. The turnover in the previous financial year was Rs 40 crore with a major part of it coming from the machine tools division.

"The Cooper range of CNC machines are manufactured by Premier. This will also be an important part of our business, going forward," Akolkar said.

Profit for the previous financial year is estimated at Rs 4 crore and the company is targetting Rs 15-20 crore for the current financial year. "Even while we were out of the automobile business, we did not make any loss," he said.

Premier now sports a new logo, the company has developed internally. The dealer network has also received a complete makeover. The company has already started releasing advertisements inviting new dealers.

"Though some of old dealers are still in business, we are open to idea of having new dealers. The focus initially will be to cover the south and western region for logistic reasons," he said.

The company will be adding 30 dealers in these two regions in the first phase. In the next phase, another 30 dealers are proposed to be added.