February 25: Telco dealers have cleared over 20 per cent of the commercial-vehicle stocks lying with them as on September 30, 1997, during the current calendar year. This was made possible through a recent 5 per cent finance scheme offered by Telco's truck finance division and Tata Finance Ltd.It is learnt that about 3,700 vehicles have so far been financed under the scheme. "Telco's finance division has funded the purchase of about 2,200 vehicles," a company official said.
A Tata finance official said, "We have already financed over 1000 vehicles under this scheme. Details from some parts of the country are still coming in and we expect to close at about 1,500 vehicles."
Over 3,000 vehicles were lifted from Telco's dealers during the month of January alone. Industry sources said the 5 per cent scheme was still open in select pockets of the country where pre-September 1997, dealer stocks were high. However, a few dealers have managed to ease out most of their pre-September stocks, it is learnt.
Thiscomes as a welcome respite for most dealers, who now face a severe resource crunch from the recession in the automobile industry. Late last year, Telco chairman Ratan Tata had reportedly told analysts that its dealers were carrying an inventory of 18,000 vehicles. Of these 11,000 were medium and heavy-commercial vehicles and 7000 were light-commercial vehicles.
The 3,700 vehicles financed so far under the special scheme, amounts to over 20 per cent of the pre-September inventory lying with dealers. "However, Telco's inventory problems are far from over," analysts said. Estimates of Telco's dealer inventory available from industry sources and analysts range from 11,000 vehicles to a little over 14,000 vehicles.
"This is still a sizeable amount," industry sources said.
Copyright(c)1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
