Hinduja Group flagship Ashok Leyland on Wednesday ruled out launching sedans and said it would rather focus on large light commercial vehicles (LCVs), to be launched by March 2014.
“We don’t want to enter the small car segment and would like to be where we could have strong customer loyalty. The commercial vehicles have a longer lifecycle and customisation,” V. Sumantran, Executive Vice-Chairman, said here.
Ashok Leyland, in a joint venture with Japan’s Nissan Motor Company, has just launched ‘Stile’ a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) which it said has the best-in-class fuel efficiency of 19.5 km per litre of diesel.
Due to the current downturn in economy, Ashok Leyland’s sale of LCVs has plummeted by nearly 28 per cent against the industry’s 30 per cent in the first half of 2013-14, vis-à-vis the same period last fiscal.
In order to boost sales, Ashok Leyland is expanding its footprint in the semi-urban areas and would increase the number of touch points from 125 to 200 by the end of the fiscal.