Amidst all the woes that Hindustan Motors is facing currently, the resignation of its MD Ravi Santharam comes as a shock to the company. While Santharam has cited personal reasons for his exit, it has once again fuelled the speculations of Hindustan Motors eventually getting out of the automotive business altogether.

Hindustan Motors is widely known as the maker of the once-popular Ambassador. However, today its products are not fairing that well in the Indian market.

Part of the GP Birla-CK Birla group, the company just coming out of the shock of the death of its Chairman GP Birla and with Santharam now exiting the business, the company is on its knees already losing market share to the counterparts. Notably, the products in its portfolio Ambassador and Lancer have been on a weak trend in terms of unit sales.

Moreover, the sales of the Ambassador, Lancer (product of HM-Mitsubishi joint venture) and the Cedia, at 7,976 units, are nothing as compared to the competition like Maruti Suzuki (Dzire and SX4) at 88,862 units. With a miniscule
3% market share in the mid-sedan segment, the company also found to have fewer products to penetrate the fiercely-competitive Indian auto market.