Lanka Leyland’s new school bus has unique features
View(s):Lanka Leyland is aiming to aggressively promote a new generation “Sunshine” school bus with an ideal combination of safety, comfort and value powered with revolutionary design, being the first frontal crash protected and rollover compliant bus.
In a media release announcing its quarterly results, the company said that the new bus with its special features makes it unique in the school bus segment and also heavy commercial vehicles that adhere to higher environmental standards in line with similar trends in other countries.
“This will however require some investment and technical training. However we are confident that the market will respond positively to our efforts,” the company said.
Meanwhile Lanka Ashok Leyland’s turnover for the first quarter of 2017/18 stood at Rs. 3.3 billion, a 59 per cent increase over the same quarter in the previous accounting year.
“This marks the second successive quarter the company has crossed a turnover of Rs. 3.3 billion. Gross profit for the quarter registered a 37 per cent increase year on year to Rs. 250.5 million despite higher import costs squeezing gross profit margins which fell to 7.7 per cent against 9 per cent a year earlier,” the company said.
Operating costs fell 42 per cent to Rs. 51 million for the quarter owing to a non-recurring reversal to boost operating profit to Rs. 210.8 million, a 102 per cent increase over 2016.
As of 30th June 2017, Lanka Ashok Leyland held inventories valued at Rs. 4.4 billion showing a 14 per cent increase from 2016/17, while interest bearing liabilities only rose 5 per cent to Rs. 2.1 billion.
Commenting on the increase of inventories, Mr. Gautam says, the rise in inventories comes as the company decided to upgrade the product line to switch over to more environment friendly BS3 vehicles with ABS Brakes and other upgraded specifications. For effective launch of BS3 products in Sri Lanka, it has imported over 500 nos vehicles to give impact to market that in future all vehicles will be BS3 Norms with upgraded specifications.
Commenting on the performance, Umesh Gautam, CEO of Lanka Ashok Leyland PLC noted that this quarter’s performance has been commendable. “Even excluding the provision reversal this quarter, the growth in sales in spite of macroeconomic conditions is heartening and gives new impetus for the management going forward. Lanka Ashok Leyland has expanded to the Eastern province effectively covering every part of Sri Lanka and establishing a truly island-wide footprint to build off,” he was quoted as saying.