Ashok Leyland announces up to 12 days of production cut in December

The company aligns its production of trucks and buses across various plants as demand for vehicles remains muted.

Ashok Leyland, the second-largest heavy-duty truck makers yet again looking to realign the production as demand for trucks continues to be weak.

After several production cuts in the last few months, Ashok Leyland declares further 2-12 days of production cuts in December 2019. In a notification to the stock exchanges the company said, “We hereby inform you that to align production in line with the market demand for our products, the company proposes to observe non-working days ranging from 2-12 days in few plants, during the month of December 2019.”

In November, Ashok Leyland declared production cuts of up to 0-12 days while in October, the company shuts its plant for nearly 15 days.

Truck makers are struggling to push sales across segments as customers are either postponing their purchasing decisions or waiting for the market to recover. The uncertainty around regulatory announcements and the upcoming BS-VI emission norms also making customers nervous; however, it is expected that the much-delayed pre-buying likely to kick-in the next three months of FY2020.

November sales down

Ashok Leyland’s reported a declined of 25% to 9,377 units in the domestic sales in November 2019. The M&HCVs sales down by 36% to 5,321 units, the trucks were down 55% while the buses posted a gain of 196%, by selling 3,447 units and 1,874 units, respectively. The LCVs were down by 6% to 4,056 units (November 2018: 4,310). The total domestic sales for FY20 reported by Ashok Leyland is 82,706 units (-27%). FY’19:1,13,941 units.