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Bus manufacturers upbeat over increasing market share

— PHOTO: G. R. N. SOMASHEKAR

OPTIMISTIC: Buses displayed at an expo in Bangalore on Wednesday.

BANGALORE: The top five bus manufacturers in the country are upbeat on the prospects of increasing their respective market share of city and inter city buses, following the stimulus package announced recently by the Government through the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The package has a component to fund State governments to acquire modern buses.

Ashok Leyland, for instance, hopes to increase its market share from the current 60 per cent in inter-city buses through its new models with varying seat configurations and enhanced production from its five plants.

Company Director (Sales and Marketing) R. N. Rao told reporters at the Bus and Special Vehicles Expo 2009, being held here, that “we have sold 16,000 buses this year. The trend is towards what may be called high-end vehicles and low floor buses.”

Mercedes Benz India General Manager Ashok Bharadwaj claimed that despite being a late entrant in the market, 25 buses were sold to operators in the southern and western regions. All were running on inter-city routes and included those of State transport undertakings. The total market for all bus models in India is around 65,000 vehicles and the luxury segment has 1,000 buses.

Tata Motors’ head of the bus division Sandeep Kumar said that orders had been booked to supply buses to transport corporations in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

The company is getting chassis kits from Brazil and body kits from Spain. Its plant in Dharwad, Karnataka, had a capacity of 15,000 units annually and exported 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles.

Swaraj Mazda General Manager (Marketing) Ganapathi Lakshmanan said the company used to manufacture 12,000 units of all bus models annually.

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