Tata Motors net falls 51 percent

Mumbai, May 30 (ANI): Tata Motors Ltd, India's automobile major reported a smaller-than-expected 50.7 percent drop in the annual profit while sales picked up in the March quarter and raw material prices fell.

This was disclosed by C Ramakrishnan, Chief Financial Officer of Tata Motors, at a press conference here on Friday.

Tata Motors, which controls about 60 percent of the world's fifth-biggest truck and bus market, said it sold 506,421 vehicles during the year, down 14 percent from 585,649 a year earlier.

The company said net profit fell to 10.01 billion rupees in 2008/09 from 20.29 billion a year earlier.

Ramakrishnan mentioned that exports of the company had dropped by around 38 percent.

"There is a sharp drop in commercial vehicle overall 15 percent decline, about five percent drop in passenger vehicles and about 38 percent drop in exports," he added.

Ramakrishnan further said that the company would also focus on economic recovery.

"We will continue to work on our working capital in Tata Motors in the standalone books of Tata Motors. We will also focus on reducing our vehicle financing portfolio as a measure of deleveraging (effecting) our balance sheet and more will be done in the subsidiaries rather than in Tata Motors," he added. The company is set to begin sales of the Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car, in July.

It had mobilised about 25 billion rupees from over 200,000 consumer bookings for the tiny car in April.

Shares in Tata Motors, worth about 3.1 billion dollars, rose 13.4 percent in the quarter, while the main index rose 0.6 percent. (ANI)