Nano gets 2.03 lakh bookings

Tata Motors' Nano has received over 203,000 bookings, which the company says is "an encouraging response". The top-end LX version received an overwhelming 50 percent of the total bookings, with the base Standard version getting 20 percent, and the remaining 30 percent being for the mid-level CX version.

Nano bookings began from April 9 for a period of two weeks and netted Tata nearly Rs 2,500 crore. This is also expected to help the company pay back loans it had taken to finance the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover last year.

Tata says it sold a total of 610,000 booking forms at its dealerships and through its finance partners. About 70 percent of the total bookings were financed, while the remaining 30 percent were made by cash. The company also received 4,000 cash bookings for the Nano online through www.tatanano.com, which Tata says is a first in the Indian auto industry. Production of the Nano is already underway at the Pantnagar plant, with deliveries expected to begin from July this year. This plant has a production capacity of 50,000 cars per year and the carmaker will allot the first 100,000 cars within 60 days of the close of bookings on April 25.

Meanwhile, the Tata Nano website has recorded 30 million hits from March 23 through to the closure of bookings. Also, around 14 lakh people visited Tata Motors’ showrooms as well as Croma and Westside stores across the country to check out the Nano for themselves.