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"Having delivered strong results in fourth last year, Ashok Leyland continues to improve its performance this quarter too. We have gained market share in medium and heavy commercial vehicles compared to the same quarter last year, despite lowered industry volumes. Enhanced sales realization through better pricing, a tight rein on costs, and a better sales mix, have resulted in a much stronger performance than Q1 FY 2014", said Vinod K Dasari, managing director, Ashok Leyland.
Sale of M&HCV vehicles for the quarter stood at 14,949 numbers (14,900). Sale of Light Commercial Vehicles stood at 5,032 nos. (6,824); the drop was primarily due to a correction in pipeline inventory.
An EBITDA margin of 4.7% for the first quarter reflects the Company's efforts at improving net realisation, reducing material costs, and controlling operating overheads; and is a significant improvement over one% for the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year.
Dasari said, "although TIV dropped by 10%, we increased our share by 2.3% - largely on account of the performances of our ICV, tipper, and tractor segments. Our new products such as BOSS continue to perform exceedingly well, and several variants are planned in our LCV range as well. We are also quite excited about the prospects of CAPTAIN and JANBUS. We are confident the market will strengthen and we will continue our efforts at offering class-leading products and services to our customers."
