‘Dost’, the 2.5T Light Commercial Vehicle from Ashok Leyland, the Hinduja Group flagship, completed one full year of successful operations clocking a sales volume of 34,917 numbers garnered from the 12 States it is presently sold in. Riding on this success, the Company has bagged healthy export orders for ‘Dost’ from the SAARC markets.

“We set out to create a vehicle to meet the requirements of an evolving LCV customer in India and we are deeply appreciative of the overwhelming customer response to ‘Dost’,” said Dr. V. Sumantran, Vice Chairman, Ashok Leyland.  “’Dost’ has truly re-defined the benchmark among small LCVs with its class-leading performance, superior reliability and low cost of ownership. We still have a long road in front of us but this surely is a journey that has started off well for us,” he added.

A true measure of its success is the fact that Ashok Leyland ‘Dost’ has already emerged as the market leader with a market share of 19% (all India) in its 2-3.5T category. With the help of an entirely new dealership network equipped with modern infrastructure that is already 100 strong, the Company plans to progressively offer ‘Dost’ pan India as well as feed the overseas markets. At the same time, plans are afoot to enhance its LCV portfolio with the introduction of variants both in the goods and passenger segments.

‘Dost’, which has a payload capacity of 1.25T, is available in three versions with the top-end version featuring air-conditioning, power steering and a palette of four colours to choose from: White, Beige, Blue and Aqua Green. Ashok Leyland also offers Ready-to-Use Vehicles (RUVs) on the ‘Dost’ platform for various applications such as Refrigerated containers, Steel containers, Ambulance, Aluminium Fixed Side Decks and Service-At-Site vehicles.

The Hon’ble Union Minister for Urban Development, Shri. Kamal Nath, today inaugurated Ashok Leyland’s new Driver Training Institute (DTI) at Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh in the presence of several dignitaries both from the Government and the Company. For Ashok Leyland, the Hinduja Group flagship and the second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in the country, this institute which is sponsored by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Govt. of India, will be the third after the DTIs in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu and Burari, near Delhi.

Speaking at the inauguration, Shri. Kamal Nath said, “Against a backdrop of a serious shortage of skilled drivers in the road transport sector, the need for well-trained commercial vehicle drivers has assumed grave criticality. I am aware of the pioneering work that Ashok Leyland has already done in the area of providing trained drivers to the industry and today’s inauguration of this new Driver Training Institute is one more significant step in the right direction. I am delighted that this institute will also help create more employment opportunities for the youth of this region by facilitating trainees transition into a career.”

Spread over 15 acres, this new facility at Chhindwara is equipped with all necessary facilities for heavy commercial vehicle driver training like vehicles, tracks of various configurations, classrooms, trainers and a state-of-the-art driver training simulator.

“Our Driver Care programme connects with the driver community at three levels,” said Mr. R. Seshasayee, Executive Vice Chairman, Ashok Leyland. “At the core, is their relationship with our vehicles and we have constantly been working at improving their overall drivability. At an important second level, is our driver training institutes that train and prepare drivers for life both on and off the road. Finally, there is an emotional connect, for which we have some key initiatives in place in the areas of health and education for their betterment.”

As part of the Company’s driver care programme is ‘Arogya’, a health initiative, with a medical center set up at Hosur, Tamil Nadu, where drivers can avail of free medical check-ups and consultations. Another initiative is the ‘All the Best’ scheme, a scholarship programme for top-performing children of drivers. Launched in Tamil Nadu and Kerala two years ago, this scheme has benefitted 650 deserving children thus far.

Ashok Leyland’s DTIs at Namakkal and Burari are considered among the most comprehensive in India’s private sector that have cumulatively trained over 500,000 drivers thus far. Two more of the Company’s driving training institutes at Kaithal (Haryana) and Bhubaneswar (Odisha) are close to inauguration while another at Rajsamand (Rajasthan) is under construction. 

“Against the backdrop of a sluggish economy and weak macro-economic indicators, Quarter III was bound to be an extremely challenging one for a GDP-driven industry as ours,” said
Mr. Vinod K. Dasari, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland. “However, despite strong headwinds, we have been able to turn in a fairly creditable performance with market share gains across regions and product segments, the aggressive network expansion programme yielding rich dividends, the LCV, Spares and Power Solutions businesses doing exceedingly well and significant inroads made into new international markets with non-SAARC markets almost offsetting the loss from an under-performing Sri Lankan market.”

Mr. Dasari was putting perspective to the Quarter III results of the Hinduja Group flagship that saw revenue drop by 18% to Rs. 2,381 crores as against Rs. 2,903 crores for the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Net profit for the quarter was, however, up by 11% at
Rs. 74 crores (Rs. 67 crores).

Employee Cost decreased by 4% at Rs. 262 crores (Rs. 272 crores). Other Expenditure increased by 13% at Rs. 306 crores as against Rs. 272 crores for the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal as also did Financial Expenses, up by 78% at Rs. 107 crores (Rs. 60 crores).

For the nine months ended December 2012, sales revenue was higher by 2% at Rs. 8,684 crores (Rs. 8,531 crores). Net profit was, however, down 8% at Rs. 284 crores (Rs 307 crores). 

The above results include a gain of Rs. 156.26 crores on part sale of investments.

Although volumes for the quarter at 22,661 nos. (23,175 nos.) is marginally lower to that of the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal, the Company did gain in a falling market with Market Share increasing by 2.5% in the M&HCV space. This was largely attributable to gains across regions except for South, where it was flat and the success of newly introduced models. The Company consciously accelerated its investments in new products to provide maximum value to its customers. The Company gained in the growing ICV segment on the back of better acceptance of the Ecomet range of vehicles while the initial market feedback to the recently launched Multi Axle Vehicles (MAVs) with Twin Speed Rear Axles and the 5-axle 3718il have been very encouraging.

‘Dost’ continued its successful run with 18% Market Share even though it is in ramp up mode with presence in 9 states.  

The Company’s network expanded rapidly which now has 435 full-service centers on all the major highways of the country while the programme of appointing new dealers has also paid off with significantly better contribution coming from the new entrants.

Apart from the LCV business, the Spare and Power Solutions businesses also grew robustly. In fact, December 2012 saw the highest ever sale of engines in a particular month of 3,444 numbers. On the International Operations front, the performance of non-SAARC markets like the Middle East, Africa, CIS and Latin America was very impressive.

Regarding future prospects, Mr. Dasari remarked: “Historically Q4 is the most robust of quarters but in the present scenario, the entire commercial vehicle industry hopes for some Government initiated stimuli soon that will help turn the tide, improve sentiments which would in turn give the entire economy a much-needed fillip.”