BANGKOK: Tata Motors Ltd, India’s largest carmaker, will start selling trucks in Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia as part of a plan to strengthen its presence in the Asia-Pacific.
Its executive director (commercial vehicles), Ravindra Pisharody, said the ‘Made in Thailand’ for pickups was a fairly well-acceptable name.
In a statement here yesterday, he said Asean would be a big play area for the company and Indonesia would be the largest in terms of volume.
“The company hopes to break into the competitive Asean market which has been a stronghold of Japanese carmakers,” he said.
For the Malaysian market, Tata Motors planned to introduce heavy-duty truck brands Ultra and Prima, he said.
“The company will be appointing a local partner which will assemble the kits imported from India.
Indonesia, which is similar to the Indian market, will also be addressed through exports out of India,” he said.
Tata said the company’s Thai unit would serve as a base to sell to the neighbouring markets.
Thailand is among the largest manufacturing bases for pickup trucks.
Tata Motors entered the Thai market in 2006 through a joint venture with Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant Co Ltd, a Thailand-based independent assembler of automobiles, to make, assemble and market pickup trucks.
Subsequently, it bought out its partner.
However, slowing sales in the Thai market along with increased competition from Japanese rivals has pushed the company to explore neighbouring markets.
Bangkok-based Mayuree Chaiyuthanaporn, senior analyst at IHS Automotive, Thailand, said that imports within the Asean region would not attract import tax, and this would help manufacturers to price vehicles competitively as compared to imports from other regions.
“Within Asean, we have Asean Free Trade Area.
Hence every vehicle produced the region and exported within the region enjoys zero tax.
“As a result, many global carmakers have made Thailand an export hub for pickup trucks for the region,” said Chaiyuthanaporn.
Last year, a total of 500,000 pickups were sold in Asean.
IHS estimates that this would expand to 576,000 by year-end, and of this, sales out of Thailand were expected to rise to 450,000 in 2015 compared with 376,000 last year.
In terms of products, Tata Motors plans to add heavy and light commercial vehicles in the Thai market.
Presently, it sells only the Xenon pickup truck and the Super Ace small truck. — Bernama