Tata Motors reported Wednesday a loss for the three months ended September, dented by the declining sales of Jaguar Land Rover and a one-off cost related to a subsidiary closure in Thailand.
Retail sales of its Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles fell 13 percent, mainly due to tariff changes in China and increasing tensions between IT and the US
"In JLR, market conditions, particularly in China, have continued to deteriorate," said Chairman N. Chandrasekaran.
"In order to withstand this volatile external scenario, we have launched an extensive turnaround plan to significantly improve our free cash flow and profitability."
Tata Motors said it plans to cut costs and improve JLR's cash flows by 2.5 billion pounds ($ 3.2 billion) in 18 months and expect them to break even this fiscal year at the level of the premastroom.
The automaker lost 10.49 billion rupees ($ 141.8 million), compared to a profit of $ 336.9 million in the same period last year, the company said.
That was worse than the estimate of a loss of $ 32.4 million, according to data from Refinitiv.
Total expenses in the period July-September increased by 8.6 percent, while sales increased from $ 9.41 billion rupees a year earlier to $ 9.64 billion.
The car manufacturer had a one-off charge of $ 59 million that was attributed to the closure of operations in its subsidiary located in Thailand.