Bengaluru: Tata Motors Ltd on Wednesday reported a loss for the three months ended September, dented by weak Jaguar Land Rover sales and a one-off charge in respect to a subsidiary closure in Thailand.
Retail sales of its Jaguar saloons and Land Rover sport utility vehicles (SUVs) fell 13.2%, hurt particularly due to tariff changes in China and escalating trade tensions between the Asian nation and the US.
“In JLR, market conditions, particularly in China, have deteriorated further,” chairman N. Chandrasekaran said.
“To weather this volatile external scenario, we have launched a comprehensive turnaround plan to significantly improve our free cash flows and profitability.”
Tata Motors said it plans to cut costs and improve JLR’s cashflows by £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) over 18 months and they expect to break even this fiscal year at the pre-tax level.
The automaker made a loss of Rs1,049 crore ($141.9 million), compared with a profit of Rs2,483 crore in the year-ago period, the company said.
That was worse than the estimate of a loss of Rs240 crore, according to Refinitiv data.
Total expenses during July-September rose 8.6%, while revenue climbed to Rs71,293 crore from Rs69,570 crore a year earlier.
The automaker incurred a one-off charge of Rs437 crore due to the closure of operations at its Thailand-based subsidiary.