Leading two and three-wheeler maker TVS Motor Company made two big announcements on Thursday - Sudarshan Venu, now Joint Managing Director, has been elevated as the Managing Director, and the company’s total revenues crossed ₹20,000 crore for the first time. It took more than three decades for the company to achieve its first ₹10,000 crore topline, while the next ₹10,000 crore has been achieved in six years. 

After he joined as Vice President of the company on December 1, 2011, Sudarshan Venu (32), son of Venu Srinivasan, was inducted into the Board of the company in February 2013. He was appointed as the Joint Managing Director effective September 10, 2014. 

His period saw a massive expansion of TVS Motor in terms of products and geographies through an aggressive inorganic strategy, in the past 2-3 years in particular. Amid the threat of COVID and associated challenges, the company continued to pursue its overseas expansion strategy. 

Sudarshan Venu played a key role in leading the company’s ride into several emerging markets in Asia and Africa. As a result, the company achieved one million annual exports for the first time during FY22.  

Aquisitions and deals

To emerge as a strong global player, TVS Motor also made one of its biggest deals – the acquisition of iconic British motorcycle brand Norton in April 2020 – under his leadership, a move that strengthened the company’s efforts to become a key player in high-end bike segments. As the future mobility and electric vehicle wave started to kick in, he turned the focus on electric mobility space and acquired Swiss-based electric bicycle company EGO and electric bike maker Swiss E-Mobility Group (SEMG). And recently also bought a majority stake in UK-based e-bike maker EBCO Ltd. 

Overall, he was instrumental in driving innovation and advanced technologies, expansion into new geographies and investment in future technologies like electric mobility. 

To drive the company’s global vision, it had brought on board Ralf Speth, the former CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, and appointed him as the Chairman of the Company, while Venu Srinivasan, has become Chairman-Emeritus. 

EV sales

“In this fiscal, we will be launching a series of new electric products focusing on different customer segments. There will be a complete portfolio of 2 and 3-wheelers in the range of 5-25 kW. First of these will hit the market in this quarter,” said KN Radhakrishnan, Director & CEO of the company during the Q4FY22 conference call,

The company has an order for more than 12,000 units for its electric scooter iQube. It has so far, sold 12,000 units across 33 cities, he added.

FY22 performance

TVS Motor has reported its highest-ever revenue, EBITDA, and profit before tax in FY22, which was a challenging year due to second and third waves of the pandemic, semiconductor shortage, container availability constraints and steep increases in the commodity costs. 

For the year ended March 31, 2021, the company’s revenue from operations grew by 24% to ₹20,791 crore as against ₹16,751 crore in 2020-21. Operating EBITDA for the year was higher at 9.4% as compared to 8.5% in FY21. The PBT before exceptional items for FY22 grew by 50% at ₹1,243 crore as compared to ₹826 crore reported during the previous year. PAT stood at ₹894 crore as compared to ₹612 crore in FY21.

 

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