Leading asset financing company, Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd (STFC), which opened its Automall at Vadodara today, a single-window destination for transaction of pre-owned commercial vehicles (CV), is eyeing a turnover of Rs 60 crore this fiscal from new initiatives that include Automalls, Shriram New Look and Shriram One Stop.
The Shriram Automall is a facility for buying, selling and auctioning of commercial vehicles, while the Shriram New Look is a facility wherein refurbished and pre-owned vehicles will be put up for sale with built-in financing options.
The Shriram One Stop is a computerised touch-screen kiosk which will be virtual marketplace for CVs where buyers and sellers can get real-time information about used vehicles. The Vadodara Automall, which has come up over 130,000 sq ft area, will house a Shriram New Look as well as a Shriram One Stop.
"We have already opened an Automall at Chennai last year.This is our second Automall. We have also opened 12 centers of the Shriram New Look and plan to have the Shriram One Stop kiosks at all the 500 branches of STFC spread across the country. We have spent close to Rs 3 crore on the two Automalls at Chennai and Vadodara combined, and have acquired around 1200 vehicles for the New Look initiative. The One Stop kiosk can come up at each branch at a cost of Rs 40,000 each.", U G Revankar, deputy managing director of STFC informed. He added that so far three auctions have taken place at Chennai which have sold around 300 vehicles.
"The turnover from these initiatives is estimated to touch Rs 60 crore for the year 2011-12", Revankar said. The company plans to have 50 Automalls across the country over the next three years. Of these, around 10 can come up within this year. After the Vadodara Automall, STFC is planning to come up with an Automall at Ahmedabad next year.
"We plan to sell around 15,000 vehicles through our New Look initiative, while we expect to sell around 10,000 vehicles in the first year, and at the One Stop we estimate around 15,000-20,000 transactions per month."
Riding on demand in the CV sector, STFC has clocked a 39 per cent growth in consolidated net profit for the year 2010-11 at Rs 1,217 crore as against Rs 873 crore clocked in the previous fiscal. Total income saw a 20 per cent growth to Rs 5,341 crore during the year as compared to Rs 4,435 registered during the year 2009-10.