Two and three-wheeler maker, Bajaj Auto has denied any production cut planned for March. Rakesh Sharma, executive director, Bajaj Auto, expressed doubts about the basis of the reports that said the company was planning production cuts.
“We expect sales in March (our billings) to be at the same level as January and February of this year and perhaps a tad lower than March ’22”, Sharma said.
These reports appear to be some assumed numbers and selective comparisons, he said. Nothing has changed since the third quarter when the company shared its cautious outlook for exports.
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Outlook for exports remained cautious and at a lower level due to US dollar availability as well as issues in Nigeria, Sharma said. Production levels were as per the anticipated sales and these were not production cuts.
Bajaj Auto
The outlook shared by the company after its Q3FY23 results remained unchanged, he said. The company had expected their largest export market, Nigeria, to remain depressed and volatile till the elections get over and a peaceful transition to the new government takes place, and till the effect of their demonetization settled.
The company had pointed out that local currency devaluation across markets had continued to subdue the entire two-wheeler industry volumes across overseas geographies leading to a 25% to 35% year-on-year decline in market volumes. In South Asia and Africa, this drop had been even more pronounced.
Normalcy was expected sometime in May or June, first in Latin America and then followed by Africa. Sharma expected the pendulum to swing and when that happened the company would be in a good position to capitalize on the resurgence as the key drivers of the demand were intact. The demographic in Africa was young, road network and urbanization was increasing and public transport network was poor all this point to a doubling of the penetration in the next five to seven years.