‘Auto market to pick up from October’

Launching the all new Indica Vista in Bangalore, S Krishnan, vice-president (commercial) of Tata Motors – passenger car business unit, said the auto industry witnessed a negative growth in July due to interest rates and inflation. The slump will continue in the current month as well as in the beginning of the next month.

But the industry will start witnessing upward trend from September-October period when the inflation and interest rates are expected to stabilize.

The company would not hike the vehicle prices to offset raising input costs but it has taken measure to cut internal costs like fixed costs and overhead costs.

He said that Indigo’s market share increaed to 37% in its ‘C’ segment during April-June in the current fiscal from 32% a year ago.

With the launch of Vista, he said the company has set a target to increase its Indica’s market share in ‘B’ segment to 20% from the current 15%.

Last year, the company has manufactured 2 lakh units of cars at its manufacturing plant in Pune against its production capacity of 2.5 lakh units. With raising sales, the company would achieve its full production capacity this year, he added.