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Vinod K Dasari, managing director, Ashok Leyland said that ALL hopes that fourth quarter will be a better one and the company is getting good response, as the demand for tanker, cement industry and white good industries have see a good improvement. Besides, ALL's strong hold of southern market is also coming back.
The company has grown 20 per cent and reported double the growth rate of the industry during quarter ended December.
"We are confident that we will outperform the industry," said Dasari, while declining to put any numbers.
Commenting about market share, he said, ALL would look at maintaining its market share of around 26-27 per cent.
"If we focus more on market share then we will also loose margin," said Dasari, adding that despite entry of new competition ALL managed to increase its market share.
ALL's current market share is at 27.01 per cent as compared to 24.7 per cent, a year ago.
"Across the country our market share has increased and per centage wise the highest was in the East, where ALL's market share increased by around 15-20 per cent in the last six quarters," said Dasari.
He attributed the increase mainly to network expansion. In the last two years, the company added around 200 retail outlets and around 100 workshops across the country. Where the third party dealers are not their, the group company Gulf-Ashely has been opening a dealership, so far 14 such outlets have been opened and all of them are profitable.
Dasari said service is one of the key for company's success. He claimed that ALL can attend any breakdown in four hours, across the country and can put back the fleet in less than 48 hours. "If not we will give Rs 1,000 every day to a customer as penalty".
On the light commercial vehicle (LCV), Dasari expects recovery by next fiscal, considering the portfolio would see the growth coming in last.
Ashok Leyland has reported a 85 per cent growth in M&HCV sales during the month of December at 7,210 units as compared to 3,890 units, while LCV sales dropped by 13 per cent to 2,080 units as compared to 2,385 units.
Sales during the April-December 2014 period grew 12 per cent to 70,743 units from 63,294 units sold during the corresponding period of previous year, the statement said.
Speaking about debt reduction programme, he said, the company is on course of achieving its target of 1:1 (debt: equity) by end of March 31, 2015.
To reduce the debt, ALL has been selling its non-core assets, raised money through QIP and initiated cost control measures, which helped ALL to bring down the debt level to around Rs 4,323 crore in September from Rs 6,200 crore in August 2013.
While ALL would continue to look at selling non-core assets, it is also taking measures to reduce the cost of debt. "We are trying to avoid short-term debt so that cost of debt will be lower," said Dasari.
