West Asia Crisis Hits Tata Motors’ Exports to SAARC & North African Markets; Sri Lanka Among the Worst Affected Regions

Tata Motors said the ongoing West Asia conflict has disrupted exports to the Middle East and parts of North Africa, while also triggering fuel supply challenges and renewed pressure across key SAARC markets even as the company managed to sustain overall international business growth.

“The Middle East crisis have impacted our exports to Middle East and partly to the North African market. But despite that, I think we have been able to maintain the growth in the international business volumes. This also led initially to a challenge in some of the fuels being made available, especially LPG.” Girish Wagh, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Motors, said. 

The company said the disruptions were particularly severe in Sri Lanka, where rising fuel prices and shortages hurt commercial vehicle demand and operations.
“Sri Lanka market is the one which has taken the maximum hit not just because of the fuel price increase, also because of non-availability of fuel,” Wagh said. Pointing that market salience for the brand is going to change, he added that an order from Indonesia is "something which is going to help us to ride this shock better.”

Tata Motors said the SAARC region, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, had been witnessing a gradual recovery from earlier economic disruptions before fresh geopolitical tensions emerged. “I think three markets were coming back quite strongly. So, SAARC will continue to be important for us. Second, I would say is sub-Saharan Africa, as well as North Africa,” he adds. 

Despite near-term headwinds, the company remains optimistic about long-term demand recovery in the Middle East, particularly as reconstruction and infrastructure activity pick up after the conflict subsides.

“We also believe that once this war is over, the Middle East market will grow even faster, because there will be higher need for some of the infrastructure-related work. So, we believe that these markets will continue to be very important for us,” he said. 

Tata Motors reported strong export growth in FY26. The company’s export volumes rose 54% year-on-year during the fiscal, while domestic volumes grew 12%.
For FY26, consolidated revenues stood at ₹83,900 crore, with EBITDA margin at 12.3% and EBIT margin at 10.2%. Profit before tax before exceptional items rose 7% year-on-year to ₹6,100 crore, while profit after tax stood at ₹3,000 crore after accounting for exceptional charges related to the New Labour Code and demerger-linked costs.

The company said FY26 marked its best operational performance in over 15 years, with record revenues, EBITDA and profit before tax. Domestic commercial vehicle market share stood at 35.7%, while heavy commercial vehicle market share improved to 55% by the end of the year.