Some passenger vehicle makers may have seen growth slow in recent months after a record 2023-24 financial year, but there seem to be no such worries for utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra [M&M].
The country's largest sports utility vehicle maker by revenue hopes to maintain its growth momentum as it gears up for new launches.
"We remain optimistic of growing in mid-to-high teens in our SUV portfolio," said Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director and CEO [auto and farm sector] at M&M.
M&M is already seeing good traction for its compact SUV XUV 3XO launched earlier this year while the five-door Thar Roxx, which is set to drive in on August 15, should give its portfolio a further acceleration. It had also reduced prices of variants of the XUV 700 SUV recently, which should aid volumes.
The company is also on track to launch its born electric vehicles in 2025. Hybrid vehicles may be seeing strong traction off-late, M&M has no plans to drive in any hybrids for now.
Anish Shah, the MD and CEO of M&M pointed that India today had 1.5 per cent penetration of EVs and therefore there was a long way to go. As more desirable products are launched in the market, it will also create more demand for EVs, he felt.
"Lessons we have to learn from the world are to create a much better charging infrastructure at a much faster pace, so we don't face the same level of hiccups as some of the markets around the world have," he added.
M&M reported a 6 per cent decline in consolidated net profit in the April-June quarter at Rs 3,283 crore from Rs 3,508 crore a year ago. Consolidated revenue was up 10 per cent to Rs 37,218 crore from Rs 33,892 crore.
It is worth noting that M&M had exceptional gain of Rs 763 crore in the previous quarter; there was a gain of Rs 405 crore on its KG Mobility investment at the time of listing of the stock and another Rs 358 crore gain on sale of its stake in MCIE.
Barring these one-time gains, the company's consolidated net profit was up 20 per cent.
M&M's volumes in the UV space were highest ever for the first quarter at 124,000 units.
It currently has 55,000 open bookings for the XUV 3XO; 42,000 for Thar; 13,000 for XUV700; 8,000 for Bolero and 58,000 for Scorpio.
To cater to the strong demand, the company is expanding its production capacity for SUVs to 64,000 units per month by the end of March 2025 from 49,000 units per month at the end of March 2024. It will also be adding a capacity of 100,000 units for EVs by the end of this financial year.
M&M reiterated its plans to spend around Rs 27,000 crore in capital expenditure over three years in the auto business.
