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Mint
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Tata Motors' headcount, senior pay squeezed as sales dip in FY25
New Delhi: For the first time in five years, automotive manufacturer Tata Motors saw its workforce shrink in a fiscal year, when its employee base fell 3% in FY25 compared to the previous fiscal. Alongside, the fiscal also saw median salary hikes for its senior-most executives at just 3% compared to 15% in FY24, according to data from its annual report of FY2024-25. The twin developments happened in the backdrop of falling demand for its cars, trucks and buses in the fiscal. The total employee count of the country's third-largest automaker, excluding employees of its UK-based subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover, fell from 60,113 employees, including workers, in FY24 to 58,442 employees in FY25, the first such fall since 2019-20. In FY24, Tata Motors had increased its workforce by 6%. Much of the fall was due to the decline of non-managerial personnel to 45,486 during the last fiscal from 47,495 in the year ago period. A Tata Motors spokesperson clarified that the fall in employee count was not reflective of the business environment. Also read | How Tata Motors plans to win back the market with its hatchbacks 'The change in non-managerial personnel is a year-end position and not representative of the underlying business fundamentals," the spokesperson said, responding to Mint's queries. Meanwhile, one of the exceptions to the 3% median salary hike for senior employees was Girish Wagh, the company's executive director, who received a 22% increase in his salary to ₹8.53 crore. To be sure, the median salary hike for all employees did see a rise–from 6.1% in FY24 to 6.5% in FY25. 'The salary increases for directors and KMPs reflect the KPI (key performance indicator) delivery and a high base effect," a company spokesperson said. The company recorded muted 1.3% growth in consolidated revenue to ₹4.39 trillion in FY25, as sales fell globally. Net profit for the year fell 11% to ₹28,100 crore, from ₹31,800 crore in FY24. The passenger vehicle division of Tata Motors recorded a 7.5% decline in revenue to ₹48,445 crore in FY25 amid a 3% fall in total sales to 556,263 cars. Similarly, the commercial vehicle segment also recorded a 4.7% fall in revenue to ₹75,053 crore as sales fell 5% to 358,570 vehicles. Broader industry trend These developments at Tata Motors raise questions about the health of the wider auto industry. The overall market for passenger vehicles (PVs–including cars and SUVs) grew just 2% in the previous financial year to 4.3 million units. In the current fiscal, industry expectations peg growth at 1-2%. 'Hiring in the auto sector is seeing some slowdown, mostly because of lower sales of regular cars and two-wheelers, although commercial vehicles are steady and electric vehicles continue to grow," said Neeti Sharma, chief executive at TeamLease Digital. 'Jobs in traditional areas like manufacturing, sales, and general IT are fewer." As per data from Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations, commercial vehicle sales in FY25 was nearly flat at 1 million units while electric passenger vehicle sales grew 17% to 107,645 units in the same period. Also read | From Tiago to Curvv: offers major price cuts and perks across EV range Tata Motors was not alone in recording a decline in sales. India's No.2 automaker Hyundai Motor India Ltd also recorded a 3% decline in sales, with domestic sales falling to 599,000 from 614,000 in FY24. To be sure, market leader Maruti Suzuki India Ltd saw domestic market growth at 3% in FY25 to 1.9 million units, compared to 9% growth in FY24. 'Unless something changes, the domestic market will remain muted," said R.C. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, post declaration of the firm's Q4 results on 25 April. 'In this current year, sales of small cars have declined by about 9%. If there is such a decline in the sales of cars that can be afforded by 88% of people earning, how can we expect growth?" Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Motors' board, said in a message to shareholders: 'The Indian passenger vehicle industry entered a phase of consolidation following years of high growth, with steady demand tempered by macroeconomic factors." Can Tata Motors' numbers recover? Analysts remain divided on whether Tata Motors' growth in revenue and profits will bounce back. 'Refresh launches of Altroz and Tiago (launched in Q4) will help Tata Motors regain lost market share in hatches, while the launch of Sierra ICE and EV and Harrier EV may strengthen UV share," Jay Kale of Elara Capital wrote in a 14 May note. However, a key factor to watch for will be whether the demand for its overall products picks up in a slow car market. 'In India, both CV and PV businesses are seeing moderation in demand. Given these headwinds, we have lowered our earnings estimates for Tata Motors by 12%/5% over FY26/FY27," Aniket Mhatre of Motilal Oswal Financial Services wrote in a 14 May note. In 2025, Tata Motors share price has fallen by 2.7% as against a 2.63% rise in Nifty Auto. Also read | Tata Motors' windscreen is hazy amid the fog of tariffs
Entrepreneur
05-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Smaller, Smarter, Stronger: How SLMs Are Fueling India's Grassroots Tech Growth
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. After the buzz around Large Language Models (LLMs), the next big wave in artificial intelligence (AI) is being led by Small Language Models (SLMs). These compact, efficient, and context-aware models are fast becoming a cornerstone of India's digital ambitions—especially for bridging the digital divide and enabling inclusive innovation across Tier-2, Tier-3, and rural regions. SLMs, unlike their heavyweight counterparts, require significantly less computational power. They typically operate with a few million to a few billion parameters—far less than LLMs like ChatGPT-4, which is estimated to have around 1.8 trillion parameters. Despite their smaller size, these models are proving powerful enough to drive real-world impact, especially in linguistically and culturally diverse markets like India. According to MarketsandMarkets, the global SLM market stand at USD 0.93 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 5.45 billion by 2032, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 28.7 per cent. This surge reflects a growing belief among Indian businesses and policymakers that SLMs are more aligned with the nation's unique digital needs. Why India needs SLMs India's linguistic diversity, regional disparities, and mobile-first user base make SLMs particularly compelling. S Anjani Kumar, Partner at Deloitte India explains, "Developing a few specialised small language models over a single general-purpose large language model is better suited because the problem statements in India are diverse and unique. Over time, organisations will build a model garden and could deploy bespoke models for specific use—for example, an SLM for the finance function in an insurance company." Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital, echoes the sentiment by emphasising infrastructure advantages, "SLMs are cheaper to build and run. They don't need big servers or fast internet—they can work on mobile phones and basic devices. This makes them perfect for villages and small towns where internet and electricity can be a problem. They also save energy and keep data safe by running on local systems." As per the PIB, 95.15 per cent of Indian villages have 3G/4G internet access as of April 2024, making low-resource AI models like SLMs practical for rural deployment. India's mobile-centric market further strengthens the case for SLMs. According to Statcounter (April 2025), mobile phones account for 79.49 per cent of web traffic in India, compared to just 19.9 per cent from desktops. The real-world impact In key sectors such as governance, healthcare, education, and banking, SLMs are beginning to demonstrate measurable impact. Priyanka Kulkarni, Manager – Telecom, Media and Technology at Aranca says, "SLMs support local data processing, aligning with India's data sovereignty and privacy goals. They lower the barrier to entry for AI innovation. Startups, research labs, and even state governments can build and iterate AI models without massive datasets or supercomputing resources." Referring to recent independent findings, Kulkarni notes that vertical-specific SLMs might deliver tangible results. For instance, in the BFSI sector, companies could achieve up to 70 per cent cost reduction in contact centres and a 75 per cent decrease in delinquency rates through vernacular AI adoption. Adding to this, Neeti Sharma says, "SLMs are helping banks approve loans faster, aiding AIIMS with local-language medical advice, and supporting tribal students through regionally tailored content. They're transforming access and equity across sectors." Building trust and inclusion Beyond performance, SLMs are advancing ethical AI principles by ensuring inclusivity and local relevance. Ankush Sabharwal, Founder and CEO of CoRover, which is building BharatGPT Lite in 14 Indian languages says,"We ensure accuracy by training our SLMs on rich, multilingual datasets. Bias mitigation is achieved through balanced datasets representing all regions and communities. Local relevance is maintained with continuous refinement based on user feedback." This approach has enabled virtual assistants developed by CoRover to assist institutions such as IRCTC, LIC, MaxLife, and local police departments, improving citizen interaction and support in regional languages. Economic empowerment through AI SLMs hold the potential to unlock opportunities for Bharat's next 500 million users, many of whom remain on the fringes of the digital economy. Mahesh Kumar, CPTO and Co-founder of Gigin AI elaborates, "SLMs transform technology from daunting to user-friendly by enabling AI that understands regional contexts, speaks local languages, and operates on affordable devices. They enable students to learn in their mother tongue, workers to search for jobs through voice commands, and farmers to get agriculture advice in their dialect." Such grassroots-level access to technology is key to democratising economic participation and reducing urban-rural disparities.
