MUMBAI, Jan 30: India’s leading vehicle company Tata Motors, swung on Friday to a standalone third-quarter net loss, hit by a sharp fall in demand.

The company, which makes cars and trucks, reported a net loss of 2.63 billion rupees ($53 million) for the three months to December compared with a net profit of 4.99 billion rupees

in the same period a year earlier.

The earnings did not include data for British luxury icons Jaguar and Land Rover, which Tata Motors bought from ailing Ford Motor Co for $2.3 billion in March last year.

Tata Motors revenues slid 34.4 per cent to 47.58 billion rupees for the quarter, a statement said.

The company blamed the loss on low demand and lack of corporate finance.

“In the quarter, the automotive sector suffered severe contraction in demand, arising from major financial and other market upheavals,” a company statement said.

“This exacerbated the lack of liquidity and unavailability of consumer finance,” the company added.

Tata Motors is expected to launch its Nano car, billed as the world’s cheapest car, by the end of March.

The company said that “pre-construction activity” had begun at Sanand in western Gujurat state for the Nano plant.

Tata decided to set up the plant in Gujarat in October last year after violent protests by local farmers against seizure of land for a factory in the eastern state of West Bengal where it had originally planned to build the car plant.—AFP