Hind Motors firms up bigger auto engg play

Hindustan Motors, the flagship company of the C K Birla Group, is looking at a larger play for its auto engineering businesses through the  three verticals — automotive stampings, forgings and castings.

These verticals were set up about a year back at its Uttarpara, West Bengal plant, from where the Ambassador car also gets rolled out. These three lines of businesses have been branded as Accustamp, Accuforge and Accucast, respectively.

Market analysts feel the move is necessitated by the pressure felt by the company from stiff MNC competition in the passenger car space. The company has a capacity to manufacture 30,000-40,000 units of the Ambassador annually but actually markets and sells 1,000-1,200 units per month, according to a top-level company source.

The source told DNA Money, “We have been planning for the last three years to become a major supplier to auto component manufacturers but we needed time to modernise our facilities.”

“Auto engineering will be the engine of growth for Hindustan Motors. There are significant expansion and investments plans in these three areas,” the source said, declining to give any figures.

The company is also planning a national footprint for the CNG version of Winner, its light commercial vehicle (LCV). Winner is sourced in a knocked down version from Shandong Shifeng of China and assembled in Uttarpara.

The cities on its radar for Winner, which was recently launched in Gurgaon and Delhi, are Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Vizag.