Tata Motors enters South African car market

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Monday, 25 October 2004, 19:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Tata Motors Ltd, India's third-biggest car maker, said on Monday it had entered the South African passenger car market and started selling the Indica hatchback and the Indigo sedan. New York-listed Tata Motors will introduce four versions of the Indica and two versions of the Indigo, it said in a statement. It will also start selling trucks made by Korea's Daewoo Commercial Vehicles, which it acquired in March, in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2005-06. Tata Motors, India's biggest bus and truck maker, has been selling medium commercial vehicles and buses in South Africa since 1997, and is setting up a bus assembly unit in Johannesburg at an investment of 40 million rand ($6.5 million). Tata Motors, the flagship of India's powerful Tata group, is aiming to boost the contribution of foreign sales to revenue to 15-20 per cent in the next three years from almost eight per cent. The company expects exports of buses and trucks to rise by 50 per cent in the year ending March 2005 from 10,832 units the previous year, with a focus on countries in South Asia and west Asia, besides South Africa.