Its biggest year, by most parameters: Highest number of commercial vehicles sold, highest-ever profit, Rs. 5,899 crore cash in hand. The two important demand drivers behind Ashok Leyland’s record performance: GST rate rationalisation (which reduced vehicle prices by about 10%), and an ageing national fleet that was due for replacement.
The company is also three years into a strategy it calls premiumisation. The latest disclosures set up the questions for FY27 as well: Rising steel costs against an unhedged commodity exposure, an EV investment that is a key audit matter, or KAM, in the standalone accounts, and a finance business that accounts for most of the group's assets and is in the process of being merged into a separately-listed company.
