Tata Motors strategy to regain lost share in domestic passenger car segment does not include new car launches only but to focus on expanding the dealership network especially in small towns and rural areas. The Home grown car maker will open 200 dealerships in this fiscal year with the rate of one outlet per day from July 2015 onwards.
Tata Motors also plans to open 1500 outlets in next five years and it is also focusing on the sales of old models like Indica etc. The company also believes that semi-urban and rural markets have equal potential like city and it will redirect its on focus these markets.
Talking about their expansion plans, Mayank Pareek, Tata Motors President (Passenger Vehicles Business Unit), said, “We need to expand our network; we need to be able to reach to customers and not the other way round. We are present in 359 cities currently, which is hardly adequate. We would like to have 1,500 outlets in the next five years.”
He added, “Tata is aiming to have a presence in all the 651 districts in the country. On achieving more sales for older models like Indica and Indigo, Mr. Pareek said, “Ours is such a big country and there is a market for all these models. We are not going to depend on just new models. Taxi phenomenon is only in the top 10-12 cities of India. When you go to smaller places, our cars have good brand equity in personal usage segment.”
Tata is also aiming for double digit growth and targeting 20,000 unit sales every month, in the month of April Tata retailed 10,230 vehicles as compared to 7441 units in the same month of last year, registering an overall growth of 37 percent while Tata’s domestic growth was down by 3 percent from the previous fiscal.
On asking about company’s support and after sales service, Mr. Parekh said, “We are working on a pilot project in three cities on customer service. It is aimed at taking car service to the doorstep of our customers. We will have mobile service workshops, which will go to homes of our customers and repair at their place instead of them coming and waiting at the workshops.”
Apart from improving its dealer network Tata will launch two new models every year and for this year they have Tata kite sedan and hatchback. Tata Nano AMT is all set to be launched on 19th May in India followed by Tata Safari Strome facelift.
