Ashok Leyland reclaims numero uno position in the bus segment from Tata Motors

Ashok Leyland has reclaimed the top spot in the bus segment from arch rival Tata Motors after nearly a year.

Although last year was marked by weakness, Ashok Leyland, the country’s third biggest commercial vehicle maker, managed to limit the impact on volumes better than commercial vehicle market leader Tata Motors.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Sanjay Saraswat, Senior Vice President & Head of Global Buses at Ashok Leyland, said, “The industry came down compared to the previous year by about 23 percent and we slowed down a little less than the others. So our market share has improved a bit."

Ashok Leyland clocked volumes of 13,708 units of medium and heavy buses as against 13,337 clocked by Tata Motors last year. In 2016-17 Tata Motors was in the lead, selling 18,198 units as against 17,725 units sold by Ashok Leyland.

Industry volumes of medium and heavy buses slumped 25 percent last year to 35,649 units as against 47,310 units sold in 2016-17. The sharp drop can be attributed to the pre-buying before the onset of the Bharat Stage IV emission standards and confusion over the implementation of bus body code.

“In my discussions with customers a few things are the same. For example there was a pre-buying that took place because of BS-IV introduction. Secondly there were regulations that came in the form of bus body code so there was some confusion with regards to its implementation. In that process many people postponed their purchases”, added Saraswat.

Bus bodybuilding had been an unregulated exercise done largely by road-side workshops and small scale enterprises often with full disregard to safety and technical standards required for running these vehicles. Often bus operators try to save on costs when building a body on the chassis leading to compromise on safety.

As the segment was unregulated the vehicles remained untested for their road worthiness. Under the new code, however, India’s premier vehicle testing agency, the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), will be authorised to carry out tests on such vehicles.

“Now both things are sorted out. Trucks have started growing, similarly buses are moving up slowly. This year should be a good year for bus sales. We expect a 20 percent growth in volumes. We would be launching four new buses this year and volumes should be back to 2015-16 levels by the end of this year”, added Saraswat.

Lastly, many state transport undertakings (STU) are gunning for electric mobility as the future for transportation. Therefore, instead of buying diesel or CNG-fired buses, these STUs are investing in buying electric buses.