Tata Motors Limited is India's largest automobile company, with consolidated revenues of INR 1,88,818 crores (USD 34.7 billion) in 2012-13. It is the leader in commercial vehicles in each segment, and among the top in passenger vehicles with winning products in the compact, midsize car and utility vehicle segments. It is also the world's fifth largest truck manufacturer and fourth largest bus manufacturer.
The Tata Motors Group's over 60,000 employees are guided by the mission "to be passionate in anticipating and providing the best vehicles and experiences that excite our customers globally."
Established in 1945, Tata Motors' presence cuts across the length and breadth of India. Over 8 million Tata vehicles ply on Indian roads, since the first rolled out in 1954. The company's manufacturing base in India is spread across Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Pune (Maharashtra), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Pantnagar (Uttarakhand), Sanand (Gujarat) and Dharwad (Karnataka). Following a strategic alliance with Fiat in 2005, it has set up an industrial joint venture with Fiat Group Automobiles at Ranjangaon (Maharashtra) to produce both Fiat and Tata cars and Fiat powertrains. The company's dealership, sales, services and spare parts network comprises over 6,600 touch points.
Tata Motors, also listed in the New York Stock Exchange (September 2004), has emerged as an international automobile company. Through subsidiaries and associate companies, Tata Motors has operations in the UK, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa and Indonesia. Among them is Jaguar Land Rover, acquired in 2008. In 2004, it acquired the Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company, South Korea's second largest truck maker. The rechristened Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company has launched several new products in the Korean market, while also exporting these products to several international markets. Today two-thirds of heavy commercial vehicle exports out of South Korea are from Tata Daewoo. In 2006, Tata Motors formed a 51:49 joint venture with the Brazil-based, Marcopolo, a global leader in body-building for buses and coaches to manufacture fully-built buses and coaches for India - the plant is located in Dharwad. In 2006, Tata Motors entered into joint venture with Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant Company of Thailand to manufacture and market the company's pickup vehicles in Thailand, and entered the market in 2008. Tata Motors (SA) (Proprietary) Ltd., Tata Motors' joint venture with Tata Africa Holding (Pty) Ltd. set up in 2011, has an assembly plant in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria. The plant can assemble, semi knocked down (SKD) kits, light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles ranging from 4 tonnes to 50 tonnes.
Tata Motors is also expanding its international footprint, established through exports since 1961. The company's commercial and passenger vehicles are already being marketed in several countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, South Asia, South America, CIS and Russia. It has franchisee/joint venture assembly operations in Bangladesh, Ukraine, and Senegal.
The foundation of the company's growth over the last 68 years is a deep understanding of economic stimuli and customer needs, and the ability to translate them into customer-desired offerings through leading edge R&D. With over 4,500 engineers, scientists and technicians the company's Engineering Research Centre, established in 1966, has enabled pioneering technologies and products. The company today has R&D centres in Pune, Jamshedpur, Lucknow, Dharwad in India, and in South Korea, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
It was Tata Motors, which launched the first indigenously developed Light Commercial Vehicle in 1986. In 2005, Tata Motors created a new segment by launching the Tata Ace, India's first indigenously developed mini-truck. In 2009, the company launched its globally benchmarked Prima range of trucks and in 2012 the Ultra range of international standard light commercial vehicles. In their power, speed, carrying capacity, operating economy and trims, they will introduce new benchmarks in India and match the best in the world in performance at a lower life-cycle cost.
Tata Motors also introduced India's first Sports Utility Vehicle in 1991 and, in 1998, the Tata Indica, India's first fully indigenous passenger car.
In January 2008, Tata Motors unveiled its People's Car, the Tata Nano. The Tata Nano has been subsequently launched, as planned, in India in March 2009, and subsequently in 2011 in Nepal and Sri Lanka. A development, which signifies a first for the global automobile industry, the Nano brings the joy of a car within the reach of thousands of families.
Tata Motors is equally focussed on environment-friendly technologies in emissions and alternative fuels. It has developed electric and hybrid vehicles both for personal and public transportation. It has also been implementing several environment-friendly technologies in manufacturing processes, significantly enhancing resource conservation.
Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in engineering and automotive solutions, automotive vehicle components manufacturing and supply chain activities, vehicle financing, and machine tools and factory automation solutions.
Tata Motors is committed to improving the quality of life of communities by working on four thrust areas - employability, education, health and environment. The activities touch the lives of more than a million citizens. The company's support on education and employability is focused on youth and women. They range from schools to technical education institutes to actual facilitation of income generation. In health, the company's intervention is in both preventive and curative health care. The goal of environment protection is achieved through tree plantation, conserving water and creating new water bodies and, last but not the least, by introducing appropriate technologies in vehicles and operations for constantly enhancing environment care.
With the foundation of its rich heritage, Tata Motors today is etching a refulgent future.
