Tata Motors surpasses Maruti Suzuki to become India’s most valued automaker

Tata Motors Ltd today surpassed Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on the stock market to become the most valued automaker in India in terms of market capitalisation. As per Tuesday’s closing price on the National Stock Exchange, the combined market capitalisation of Tata Motors and Tata Motors DVR shares stood at Rs 3.17 lakh crore, compared with Rs 3.13 lakh crore of Maruti Suzuki.

Tata Motors topped after the automaker’s shares rose as much as 5.3% to Rs 885.95 in today’s intra-day trading before settling at Rs 864.90. Tata Motors' DVR also scaled a new high of Rs 589.40 and closed at Rs 572.60 on Tuesday. Shares of India’s largest passenger carmaker Maruti Suzuki closed at Rs 9,950 today.

DVR refers to differential voting right, which is a special class of shares issued by the company that carry different voting and dividend rights compared to the regular equity shares.

Tata Motors was the first company to issue DVR shares on the Indian stock exchange. DVRs were issued in November 2008 to fund the company’s $2.3 billion acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford Motors.

So far this year, shares of Tata Motors gained around 10%, while those of Maruti Suzuki lost 3.4%. Promoters and promoter groups of Tata Motors hold 46.3% shares of the company, while the public holds the rest. In July, the automaker announced its plans to cancel DVR shares and issue seven new ordinary shares for every 10 DVRs, in a bid to simplify its capital structure. The cancellation is expected to be completed by the middle of the next financial year.

Tata Motors is currently the largest commercial vehicle maker and third largest passenger vehicle manufacturer in the country. The group’s global wholesales, including Jaguar Land Rover, rose 9% on year during the October-December quarter to 338,177 units. The automaker is also the market leader in the domestic electric car market with a share of over 80%. It sold 69,153 electric passenger vehicles in the calendar year 2023.

The company has planned two pure electric vehicle architectures in the coming year, eyeing a portfolio of ten electric vehicle models. It will share the Jaguar Land Rover brand’s premium EMA electric vehicle architecture for the Avinya range of cars while it has introduced an all-new Pure EV compact vehicle architecture called ACTI-EV or ACTIV, which will power the upcoming Harrier, Curvv and Sierra. The recently launched Punch EV is on the ACTIV platform.