Ashok Leyland, commercial vehicle (CV) maker, has reported a 31% increase in December sales.
The company sold 12,209 commercial vehicles in both the categories -- M&HCV and LCV -- in December 2015, as against 92,90 units sold in December 2014. Growth in the M&HCV was 35%, while the LCV segment grew lower at 18%.
The company did not provide the break-up of domestic sales and exports in its regulatory filing with the BSE on 2 January, 2016.
Commercial vehicle sales grew at a lower clip at Tata Motors. The company sold 27,347 CVs in December 2015, 6% more than 25,736 sold in December 2014.
The company's LCV segment registered a growth of 11% at 14,674 units, while M&HCV sales stood at 12,673 units, a growth of 2%, the company said in a revised press statement.
Tata Motors was not affected by the Chennai floods last month, while Ashok Leyland witnessed disruption in its operations.
Ashok Leyland had stopped production at its Ennore unit near Chennai on 1 and 2 December, 2015, affecting four shifts and commenced regular production from 7 December, 2015, it said in a regulatory filing on 7 December.
The Ennore plant accounts for about 40% of its total production and employs about 5,000 workers.
The company had registered a 63% growth in the April to September period this year in volume sales at 46,074 units in the MCHV segment. In value terms, the company's revenues were up 54% y-o-y at Rs 8,781 crore, from Rs 5,695 crore during April-September 2014.
In a conference call in November 2015, the company had ruled out capital expenditure to increase production capacity.
"...our capacity is about 150,000 excluding LCV and you know I don't see an issue on capacity immediately...Now are we going to incur a huge amount of capex on that, I believe not so I am not too concerned about capacity for the next couple of years at least," said Gopal Mahadevan, the company's CFO, during a earnings' conference call earlier this month.
