The Next Five Million

Firing on all cylinders, tata motors recently rolled out its five-millionth passenger vehicle from its assembly lines. As it sets out to make the next five million vehicles, the race ahead is full of challengers

- Prerna Lidhoo

As the morning sun casts a warm glow over Mumbai, where the 78-year-old home-grown automaker Tata Motors is headquartered, the streets slowly come alive with the sounds of horns honking and engines revving. In the past few decades, neither has the morning sun changed, nor the bustling sounds of Mumbai’s streets. What has changed, though, is the fate of Tata Motors, part of the `21-lakh crore saltto-software Tata group. The `2.75-lakh crore (consolidated FY22 revenues) commercial vehicles giant is now India’s third-largest passenger vehicles (PV) maker as well. In FY23, its market share of 13.39 per cent is very close to second-placed Hyundai’s 14.51 per cent. Plus, its growth rate (of vehicle sales) in this period is 46 per cent, compared to Hyundai’s 9.6 per cent, giving it more than a sniffing chance of overtaking the Korean major.

The icing on the cake: on March 3, Tata Motors rolled out its five-millionth car, reflecting its long and successful journey. The milestone was achieved nearly 25 years after the company entered the passenger vehicles market in 1998. (It started life as a locomotive manufacturer—Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company or Telco—in 1945, and entered the commercial vehicles market in 1954.)