Tata Motors Ltd. ADR Earnings Call Nuggets: Dip in Market Share and Extent of Discounts

Tata Motors, Ltd. ADR (NYSE:TTM) recently reported its third quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Dip in Market Share

Kapil Singh – Nomura: Sir, good evening. I have a couple of questions. First on, while MHCV volumes, we’ve seen a dip in market share this year compared to last year and in some of the months like Jan it has been even below 50%, so is it related to inventory correction or is it related to growth or decline in volumes in markets where Tata Motors is stronger, how would you explain that and what is plan to gain back the share?

C. Ramakrishnan – CFO: I think you have touched on the two factors which are both important I think there is a play of both. Inventory correction is not so much at our end, our inventories have been under control for – in the Commercial Vehicle business, but there has been inventory correction in some of our competition and there is a regional play as well. We expect that the market share will maintain and come to our market share in the coming quarters.

Kapil Singh – Nomura: Sir, in retail you would have around 60% kind of a share?

C. Ramakrishnan – CFO: Yes, I don’t have the number right now readily here, but yes, in retail, yes.

Kapil Singh – Nomura: Secondly, as far as profitability is concerned for MHCVs or even for that matter for LCVs, is there a increase in competitive intensity and when the market recovers, do you think we will be able to get back to historical level of margins that we used to see two or three years back, or do you think that because of higher competition the margins maybe a tad lower than what we were seeing earlier?