Hero Motocorp wants government to take ‘urgent steps’ to help recover falling sales

• Hero Motocorp announced its Q1 FY20 earnings, where the company saw a net profit of ₹1257 crores, up by 38%.
• However, Hero has seen a decline in sales by 12.2% from the same quarter in FY19.
• The company’s CFO appealed to the government to reduce the GST on two-wheelers from the current 28% to 18%.

Hero Motocorp posted a net profit of ₹1,257 crore for the quarter ending June 2019, up 38% from last year’s ₹925 crore. Yet, the company is not happy.

The slowing auto market has affected it sales too, which declined by 12.2% to 616,526, just for the month of June, as compared to the 704,562 units sold in the same month last year.

"The overall economic and customer sentiments continued to be soft during the first quarter of this fiscal and their impact is clearly visible in the performance of the Auto sector, The outlook for the rest of the year will be dependent on multiple factors, including the progress of monsoon and festive season offtake, as well as improvement in liquidity,” said Niranjan Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, Hero MotoCorp.

In the Q1, Hero has sold over 1.8 million motorcycles and scooters. In the same quarter of the previous year, Hero had announced its highest ever sales in a single quarter at – 2.1 million.


Hero Motocorp had recently announced its foray into the electric vehicle segment. However, according to reports, the Pawan Munjal-led company will not be able to use its legacy brand name of Hero for EVs as his brother Naveen Munjal has the rights for the brand name Hero for Hero Electric.

Gupta also said that it is important for the government to take urgent steps to boost consumption. “We would, therefore, reiterate our appeal to the government to bring down the GST on two-wheelers to 18% from the current level of 28%, in order to provide the much-needed relief to the sector. A reduction in GST will lower the cost of the two-wheeler and spur demand, with the consequent growth in volumes offsetting any impact on the government revenue,” said Gupta.