Ashok Leyland (NSE: ASHOKLEY, BSE: 500477) is a commercial vehicle manufacturing company based in Chennai, India. Founded in 1948, the company is one of India's leading manufacturers of commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses, as well as emergency and military vehicles. Operating six plants, Ashok Leyland also makes spare parts and engines for industrial and marine applications. It sells about 60,000 vehicles and about 7,000 engines annually. It is the second largest commercial vehicle company in India in the medium and heavy commercial vehicle (M&HCV) segment with a market share of 28% (2007-08). With passenger transportation options ranging from 19 seaters to 80 seaters, Ashok Leyland is a market leader in the bus segment.The company claims to carry over 60 million passengers a day, more people than the entire Indian rail network. In the trucks segment Ashok Leyland primarily concentrates on the 16 ton to 25 ton range of trucks. However Ashok Leyland has presence in the entire truck range starting from 7.5 tons to 49 tons. The joint venture announced with Nissan Motors of Japan would improve its presence in the Light Commercial Vehicle
The origin of Ashok Leyland can be traced to the urge for self-reliance, felt by independent India. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, persuaded Mr Raghunandan Saran, an industrialist, to enter automotive manufacture. The company was established in 1948 as Ashok Motors, to assemble Austin cars. The company’s destiny and name changed soon with equity participation by British Leyland and Ashok Leyland commenced manufacture of commercial vehicles in 1955. Today the company is the flagship of the Hinduja Group, a British-based and Indian originated transnational conglomerate.
Early products included the Leyland Comet bus which was a passanger body built on a truck chassis, sold in large numbers to many operators, including Hyderabad Road Transport, Ahmedabad Municipality, Travancore State Transport, Bombay State Transport and Delhi Road Transport Authority. By 1963, the Comet was operated by every State Transport Undertaking in India, and over 8,000 were in service. The Comet was soon joined in production by a version of the Leyland Tiger.
In 1968, production of the Leyland Titan ceased in Britain, but was restarted by Ashok Leyland in India. The Titan PD3 chassis was modified, and a five speed heavy duty constant-mesh gearbox utilized, together with the Ashok Leyland version of the O.680 engine. The Ashok Leyland Titan was very successful, and continued in production for many years.
Over the years, Ashok Leyland vehicles have built a reputation for reliability and ruggedness. This was mainly due to the product design legacy carried over from British Leyland.
Through tie-ups with global technology leaders, supplemented by in-house R&D infrastructure and capabilities, Ashok Leyland has maintained its technological leadership even as it offers the most comprehensive range of model configurations in its class.
Ashok Leyland had a collaboration with Hino Motors, Japan from whom the technology for the H-series engines was bought. Many indigenous versions of H-series engine were developed with 4 and 6 cylinder and also conforming to BS2 and BS3 emission norms in India. These engines proved to be extremely popular with the customers primarily for their excellent fuel efficiency. Most current models of Ashok Leyland come with H-series engines.
In 1987, the overseas holding by Land Rover Leyland International Holdings Limited (LRLIH) was taken over by a joint venture between the Hinduja Group, the Non-Resident Indian transnational group and IVECO Fiat SpA, part of the Fiat Group and Europe's leading truck manufacturer. Ashok Leyland’s long-term plan to become a global player by benchmarking global standards of technology and quality was soon firmed up. Access to international technology and a USD 200 million investment programme created a state-of-the-art manufacturing base to roll out international class products. This resulted in Ashok Leyland launching the 'Cargo' range of trucksb based on European Ford Cargo trucks. These vehicles used Iveco engines and for the first time had factory-fitted cabs. Though the Cargo trucks are no longer in production, the cab continues to be used on the 'ecomet' range of trucks.
In the journey towards global standards of quality, Ashok Leyland reached a major milestone in 1993 when it became the first in India's automobile history to win the ISO 9002 certification. The more comprehensive ISO 9001 certification came in 1994, QS 9000 in 1998 and ISO 14001 certification for all vehicle manufacturing units in 2002. In 2006, Ashok Leyland became the first automobile company in India to receive the TS16949 Corporate Certification