Ashok Leyland’s April Sales Fall 30% As Truck Sales Drag

Ashok Leyland Ltd. reported a 30 percent fall in its overall sales in April, the steepest fall in seven months, the company said in an exchange filing. The commercial vehicle manufacturer sold 7,083 units compared to 10,182 units during the corresponding period last year. It was the steepest fall since September 2016.

The Chennai-based automaker had upgraded its entire range of offerings to comply with Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) norms, 20 days after the ban on registration of vehicles compliant with older emission norms came into force.

Sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles declined 43 percent to 4,525 units compared to 7,873 units last year.

Sale of light commercial vehicles bucked the trend, growing 11 percent in April to 2,558 units compared to 2,309 units in the year-ago period.

Ashok Leyland will retrofit its older BS-III vehicles with new technology in keeping with the Supreme Court directive imposing a ban on the sale of BS-III compliant vehicles from April 1, 2017.

The company had decided to retrofit the older engines of over 10,000 trucks which had not left their factory in Chennai, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vinod Dasari had told BloombergQuint.

Shares of the company fell as much as 2.93 percent to Rs 82.90 post the announcement on the National Stock Exchange.