The Hindu Business Line : TVS Motor confident of regaining market share

Mr Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Motor Company Ltd, at the launch of the TVS Victor GLX 125 cc motorbike in Chennai on Sunday. — Shaju John

Chennai , May 2

TVS Motor Company Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan, has expressed confidence that the company would come back in terms of market share in the current year, with the help of a range of new products.

He said at a press conference here on Sunday that the company's share of the motorcycles market was 16 per cent last year. A year ago, it was 19 per cent. The company had then said it desired to raise its market share by at least 1 per cent in 2003-04.

When asked for a reason for the slide in the market share, Mr Venu Srinivasan gave two reasons - one, there was a drop in the sales of the two-stroke Max 100 vehicles, and two, the TVS Victor came in for a touch of competition from Bajaj's Passion and Hero Honda's Splendour Plus.

But with the sales of Centra picking up, TVS Motor finds scope to believe that the company could regain the lost ground. A range of new products has been planned, including a 4-stroke variant of Max 100 R.

On Sunday, the company launched the Victor 125 GLX, a 125-cc variant of the Victor motorcycle, fitted with the VT-i engine. The engine, patented by the company, was first introduced in the Centra motorcycles.

The Victor 125 GLX is priced at around Rs 45,000, ex-showroom, Chennai.

Mr Venu Srinivasan said the company intended to give a significant thrust to ads and promotion. He felt that even the launch of the Centra vehicles was not backed by enough promotional push. He, however, refused to disclose how much the company intended to spend on ads in the current year, noting that the budget exercises were on and the proposed ad-spend was yet to be decided.

Last April, the company said it would spend about Rs 100 crore on ads and promotion in the year 2003-04.

Answering another question, Mr Venu Srinivasan said that the company was yet to take a decision on where or when to start overseas manufacturing operations.

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