Addressing virtually Tata Motors shareholders at the company’s 78th AGM here, chairman N Chandrasekaran also said that the domestic business is expected to achieve the ‘zero debt’ target by this fiscal while the subsidiary company JLR will achieve it in the calendar year 2024.
“We have an exciting journey ahead of us and the management teams are very committed and focused towards accelerating our journey towards this transformation,” Chandrasekaran told shareholders.
“Tata Motors will continue to remain focused on executing its strategy to deliver growth, profitability and free cashflows consistently,” he said.
Looking ahead, he said, all three businesses of the company – commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and electric vehicles — and Jaguar Land Rover are all geared for growth as well as leadership in each of their segments.
The commercial vehicles business is focusing on growth as well as profitability in all three platforms while the passenger car business, apart from growing the portfolio, is already a leader in the electric vehicles space and is committed to maintaining the leadership by bringing the best of technology with new products. A large number of products are scheduled to be launched in the coming years.
Similarly, on the Jaguar Land Rover business, the transition towards electric mobility, both for Jaguar and Range Rover, is well on its way. New launches in both Range Rover and Jaguar are scheduled in the latter part of next year and will continue into 2025.
Chandrasekaran said that the CV business is fast transitioning from being a pure-play OEM to a holistic solution provider.
“On our net debt journey, I expect Tata Motors domestic business to become near net-debt zero in FY24 and JLR in the following year,” he stated. Noting that while the global geopolitical as well as economic environment is still evolving, he said, “We have moved from low growth and high inflation environment. The world is now moving towards a less growth and a less inflation environment.”
The Tata Sons Chairman said that “the global GDP growth is expected to be around 2.6 per cent during 2023 and inflation is supposed to fall from 6.5 per cent in 2022 to 4.0 per cent”.
“There has been divergence across major economies. The US economy continues to be very resilient. In contrast, the Eurozone and China seem to have a slowdown in the growth momentum. The good news is all major developed nations of the world will dodge recession,” he said.
In all this, India continues to remain a “strong economy” with a projected growth rate of about 6.4 per cent this fiscal year, he said and added, “there is strong activity expected in manufacturing as well as services across sectors.”
“In this micro scenario, we are continuing to witness acceleration towards the major mega trends – adoption of digital and artificial intelligence, energy transition and transition towards a resilient supply chain. These are trends that are getting adopted by businesses and nations,” Chandrasekaran said.