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Eicher Motors has said that the company is on track to upgrade its bikes to BS-VI emission norms before the government’s deadline of April 2020. It also said that reduction in GST will be beneficial to the industry.
“Since we got the notification in 2016, we are working on our BS-VI models and are in the final stages of testing, validation and will certainly be ready in time for BS-VI as mandated by the government. So we are on track,” said Siddhartha Lal, MD and CEO, Eicher Motors.
On reduction of GST to 18 per cent from 28 per cent, Lal said: “It would be beneficial if the GST is brought down, as in comparison to cars (GST) two-wheelers should be lower.”
Two-wheeler manufacturers such as Hero MotoCorp and TVS Motor have already sought reduction in the GST to 18 per cent.
Q3 results
Meanwhile, Eicher Motors reported consolidated results of the third quarter ended December 31. For Royal Enfield, the company reported net profit of ₹533 crore for the quarter, 2 per cent up as compared with ₹521 crore in the corresponding period previous year.
Total revenue from operations also rose by 3 per cent year-on-year to ₹2,341 crore, as against ₹2,269 crore in October-December 2017. The company sold 1,93,871 motorcycles in the quarter, registering a decline of 6 per cent from 2,02,736 motorcycles sold in the same period previous year.
“The latter half of 2018 was a challenging period for the two-wheeler industry in India. Factors like increased insurance requirements, rising raw material costs and the subsequent price increase due to regulatory safety requirements impacted the momentum of the industry,” Lal said.
“We believe this is a temporary impact due to a price reset. We continue to remain optimistic about the trend of premiumisation in the motorcycling industry, and are confident that this trend will continue in the future,” he added.
In the commercial vehicles segment, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) — Eicher’s joint-venture with AB Volvo — was affected by the industry slowdown, especially in heavy duty segment, the company said. It reported net profit of ₹76 crore during the quarter, a decline of 43 per cent year-on-year as compared with ₹133 crore in the same period previous year. However, revenue from operations rose by 9 per cent to ₹2,818 crore from ₹2,590 crore in October-December 2017.
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