Commercial vehicle manufacturers SML Isuzu, see 85-90 percent of bus sales accounted by schools and thus the closures due the COVID-19 pandemic hurt their business.
Gopal Bansal, Whole-Time Director & CFO of the company told CNBC-TV18 that they did see around 500 units of sales in the month of December and majority of their business happens in Q1 and Q2 because of their exposure to school buses.
SML supplies 7,000-8,000 buses to schools each year usually. “Uncertainty about the opening of schools still continue but one positive thing is that the vaccine has been approved by the government. So there is hope of school reopening,” he said.
On cargo business front, Bansal said, “We are doing better in cargo business and have sold 1,400 cargo units in Q3 versus 800 earlier. Therefore, with the economy opening up, we hope to do better than what we have done so far.”
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