Tata Motors net down 2%; domestic unit in recovery mode

Tata Motors today reported a marginal
2 per cent dip in net profit at Rs 3,507.54 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 due to weaker sales mix and higher depreciation costs.
The marginal fall in bottomline was mainly due to the comparatively poor show by its bread-and-butter British arm Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which saw its net dip by over 186 million pounds.
But this was mostly compensated by the massive recovery of
the parent Tata Motors, which hugely narrowed its net loss to about Rs 201 crore from a massive Rs 2,122.72 crore in the same period last fiscal.

The near return to profit of the domestic unit was primarily driven by higher sales in both the passenger vehicles business as well as the HCV unit, the company said.

Net sales rose 3.71 per cent to Rs 71,686.12 crore from Rs
69,121.61 crore, out of which domestic sales rose to Rs 9,889.44 crore from Rs 8,943.57 crore, while that of JLR declined to 5,781 million pounds from 5,879 million pounds.
"The lower profit was due to weaker sales mix (both model and market), higher depreciation and amortisation expenses, non-recurrence of an annual China tax rebate (received in the third quarter of 2014-15, but in current year it was received only in the first quarter of 2015-16) and other items in the JLR business," Group Chief Financial Officer C Ramakrishan said.

On a standalone basis, Tata Motors posted a narrowing net
loss of Rs 200.86 crore during the quarter from a loss of Rs 2,122.72 crore in the year-ago period.
On a standalone basis, unit volume sales, including exports of commercial and passenger vehicles stood at 1,23,295 units, a decline of 3.3 per cent, compared to the corresponding quarter last year, he said.
JLR revenues for the quarter declined to 5,781 million pounds from 5,879 million pounds as China continued to struggle.
But JLR Chief Executive Ralph Speth exuded confidence that
China will do better following more localised models.
"The Chinese are showing more preference for locally assembled models, which should help us do better going forward.

"We have already booked 20 million pounds in profit from
China operations in the quarter and also 30 million pounds in insurance settlement out of the 240 million pounds we had provided for as impairment charges following the blasts in the port godowns last year," Speth said.
He also said the company has ramped up its sales network
by 90 per cent to 200 sales and service centres by the end of the December quarter.
Tata Motors shares closed down 5.5 per cent at Rs 275.65
On the near turnaround of the Tata Motors' domestic
business, Ramakrishnan and company president Ravi Pisharody said the company posted a significant improvement in operating margin at 5.7 per cent, an improvement of 860 basis points on a year-on-year basis.

"This is after adjusting for the Singur and other one-offs in the third quarter of FY15," Ramakrishnan said.
The medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment posted a 14.8 per cent year-on-year growth. The domestic business maintained positive EBITDA margin trend in all the three quarters of current year, compared with a negative EBITDA margin in all the three corresponding quarters of last year, he added.
JLR, with a margin of 14.4 per cent, reported an EBITDA of 834 million pounds, down 262 million pounds but up 245 million pounds from Q2, Speth said.
"The annual decrease broadly reflects a softer sales in China and model mix, non-recurrence of an annual China tax rebate and partially offset by higher wholesales volumes," Ramakrishnan said, adding, the company got 30 million pounds as part of insurance claim for the Tianjin port fire.

Speth said JLR will be investing 400 million pounds less than what was committed as capex this fiscal at 3.3 billion pounds, but was soon to add that this does not in anyway will have any impact on investments in product development and R&D. But the lower capex is coming from cost reductions.
Speth said JLR wholesales (excluding China) stood at 1,37,631 units, up 12.6 per cent, adding China JV wholesales for the quarter were 12,830 units.
JLR saw strong sales in Britain, Europe (which became its largest market), North America and other overseas markets which helped the company partially offset lower sales in China and weaker model mix in the quarter.

While the overall LCV segment continued to decline but several segments of the LCV, both in goods and passenger carrier segment, saw positive growth during the quarter. The SCV segment, a part of LCV, though declined during the quarter, witnessed a positive growth in December and January.
This has helped the company improve its market share to 53 per cent, up 2.8 per cent from last year.
Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicles registered net revenue of 226 billion Korean wons and recorded a net profit of 12.3 billion wons.
Tata Motors Finance on a consolidated basis registered net revenue of Rs 721 crore and reported a net income of Rs 33 crore.