Ashok Leyland is expecting demand revival to start in September, said Gopal Mahadevan, chief financial officer of the company, after the Hinduja Group flagship reported a 28 percent decline in total sales at 10,927 vehicles in July as against 15,199 units in the same month last year.

The stock is under pressure and has hit a fresh 52-week low today while it has fallen 36 percent in 2019.

“At the moment the overall expectation is that the pre-buy will start or the demand revival will start sometime in September and last through till January,” said Mahadevan in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

“In the beginning of the year we had thought that there would be an overall growth for the full year given that there is a transition in BS-VI in FY20-FY21, but we have seen that the general mood has been damped not only for commercial vehicles (CV) but also for passenger vehicles (PV), two-wheelers, and overall sector. Hopefully, things will start, the government has made announcements in terms of investing in infrastructure and other measures. So hopefully things will start to revive the CV industry demand as well,” he added.

On the market share, Mahadevan said, “We have a twin-pronged strategy of ensuring that we are getting a greater share of the business from the customers and also to ensure that we maintain profitability as we do this. So, it is not an either-or situation. This is quite challenging in terms of execution but that is what we want to do.”

“In the current quarter, other than West, we have gained market share in all geographies and across products, other than tippers," he added.