India's passenger vehicle market has seen strong traction over the last few years, aided by rising demand for sports utility vehicles (SUV). Homegrown auto major Tata Motors expects the passenger vehicle market to touch six million units by 2029-30 financial year and the company is targeting a share of 18-20 per cent by then.
Riding on the SUV trend, Tata Motors ended 2023-24 as the third largest passenger vehicle maker in the country and had a 14 per cent market share. Its Nexon has been the top-selling compact SUV, while the Punch leads the sub-compact SUV segment. The Harrier and Safari SUVs too have seen good traction.
The company aims to achieve market share growth by launching new products and entering newer segments.
"We will increase our addressable market with new nameplates in promising segments. Currently, our product portfolio occupies six sub-segments, which represent 53 per cent of TIV (total industry volume). We will increase our addressable market to 80 per cent of TIV with new nameplates," Shailesh Chandra, MD, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility, stated in a presentation delivered on the company's investors day on Tuesday.
Tata Motors dominates India's electric vehicle market with a share of 73 per cent last year. In the current financial year ending March 2025, the company will expand its EV offerings with the launch of the new Curvv and the electric variant of Harrier SUV. In the next financial year (2025-26), it will launch the new Sierra EV and Avinya. The company aims to have a EV portfolio comprising 10 models by 2025-26.
Increasing the addressable market by introducing new nameplates is one of five key strategic pillars that Tata Motors has identified to capitalise on industry trends and drive growth, said Chandra.
He said the company would strengthen multi-powertrain strategy to leverage industry powertrain shifts; proactively grow the EV market in India and maintain leadership; leverage technology to augment products in line with customer demands and enhance profitability through scale benefits, improving mix and optimisation of cost and capex.
"We will proactively drive mainstreaming of EVs in India. We will drive growth through holistic initiatives across product, channel and ecosystem," said Chandra.
He added that the company will strive towards acquisition price parity for EVs. Declining global battery prices, localisation and production-linked incentive scheme should help lower prices of Evs, and prices of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles and EVs will converge over time.
Tata Motors also plans to expand its exclusive retail channel for EVs. It has identified 50 cities where it aims to activate the EV exclusive outlets over the next two years.
Apart from launching new EVs, the company will facilitate and drive charging infrastructure growth too. Tata Motors already has collaborations with several charging ecosystem partners. There were 10,000 public chargers in 2023-24, and it expects a ten times growth to over 1 lakh public chargers by 2029-30. Community charging infra is also expected to jump from over 4,300 last year to a lakh in the same period.
Tata Motors' India business became net debt free in 2023-24 and its luxury Jaguar Land Rover unit is also on track to become net debt free in the current financial year, the company said.
Tata Motors shares were up 1.4 per cent on the BSE in afternoon trade on Tuesday, while the broader BSE Sensex trended 0.4 per cent higher.