According to company chairman Dheeraj Hinduja, the heavy commercial vehicle maker is looking at exploring newer markets.
Top officials of Ashok Leyland were in Chennai to mark the 75th anniversary celebrations of the city-headquartered company.
“You know our vision is clear and we have discussed it many times, that is to be a global Top 10 commercial vehicle player. Currently, we are at No 20…” Hinduja told select reporters.
Elaborating, he said the company’s sales volume was growing in the Indian market and the ‘Avtar’ product developed by Ashok Leyland was a modular product, and such products have been developed with a mindset to serve international markets. “What is critical for us is to create the right network outside of India, find appropriate distributors in markets where we are currently not present,” he added. In the last 16 months, the company appointed 13 distributors in the African market with some of them having their own Assembly facility. “We are constantly looking at newer markets..” hinduja said.
On the products offered by the company, Ashok Leyland Managing Director and CEO Shenu Agarwal said the country’s first hydrogen fuel bus developed by them would be commercially plying on the road by December.
On the Hydrogen fuel bus developed by the company for state-owned NTPC, he said, “… it is going to be the country’s first hydrogen fuel bus that would be commercially plying on the road. This is for the Leh and Ladakh region. Because of the high altitude it will undergo some testing and may be in early December we may be supplying the hydrogen fuel-operated bus to NTPC.”
Referring to Hinduja’s comments that the company should be among top 10 global commercial players, MD and CEO Agarwal said, “it is a long way to go since we are in the top 20 now. With the new products that are coming up, and with the new technologies that we are investing in, we are going to expand our global footprint in a much more aggressive manner.”