We hope to sell 2 lakh Nano this fiscal: Ratan Tata

Tata Motors expects to sell at least two lakh units of its small car Nano this year, Chairman Ratan Tata said on Friday.

"Yes, there is a need to increase the volumes...The year is not yet over, and I hope at least we can sell 2 lakh Nanos this year," Tata told the 67th AGM of the company, in reply to a suggestion from a shareholder that company should step up efforts to sell more Nanos.

In July, the company sold 5,485 Nano , recording a healthy 68 per cent rise over 3,260 units in July last year.

The company reported a 15 per cent spike in total sales at 74,159 units, led by commercial vehicles.

"Tata Motors will have to understand customers better and will have to pay attention to the product offerings as well as customer support....will have to sustain and retain the market share," Tata said.

"Failure to do so will see us slipping."

Tata Motors India is introducing very competitive range of commercial vehicles, which can compete with international CV makers like Merc, Volvo, and the homegrown Mahindra Navistar, to which it has been losing in sales of late, he said.

"Overseas, the situation has been more hopeful, there has been higher sales of Jaguar and land Rover. So we have a situation where the Indian entity has not done as well as it might be expected to do and the foreign operations has done exceedingly well. Most of us will be proud of what Jaguar has been able to do," Tata said.

There was lot of cynicism and scepticism when the company acquired JLR in January 2008, he reminded.

Tata Motors Group on Thursday posted a 12.3 per cent rise to Rs 2,244.91 crore in consolidated profit in the June quarter, helped by a 91 per cent jump in sales by JLR in China.

Tata Motors India, however, continued its downwards spiral both in sales and profit, with revenue sliding 9 per cent to Rs 10,586 crore from Rs 11,624 crore in the reporting quarter. Its profit plunged 49 per cent to Rs 205 crore from Rs 401 crore.

On the outlook he said that the US will recover faster than Britain or Western Europe from the downturn, and Asia will probably continue to grow.

On the increasing sale of diesel cars, Tata said diesel has really been given the name `fuel of the future', and both in terms of fuel economy and torque, diesel is good.

"Diesel is going to really become the engine of the future, so everyone is working on diesel," he said.