'Dost', the 2.5T Light Commercial Vehicle from Ashok Leyland, the Hinduja Group flagship, completed one full year of successful operations clocking a sales volume of 34,917 numbers garnered from the 12 States it is presently sold in. Riding on this success, the Company has bagged healthy export orders for 'Dost' from the SAARC markets.

"We set out to create a vehicle to meet the requirements of an evolving LCV customer in India and we are deeply appreciative of the overwhelming customer response to 'Dost'," saidDr. V. Sumantran, Vice Chairman, Ashok Leyland."'Dost' has truly re-defined the benchmark among small LCVs with its class-leading performance, superior reliability and low cost of ownership. We still have a long road in front of us but this surely is a journey that has started off well for us," he added.

A true measure of its success is the fact that Ashok Leyland 'Dost' has already emerged as the market leader with a market share of 19% (all India) in its 2-3.5T category. With the help of an entirely new dealership network equipped with modern infrastructure that is already 100 strong, the Company plans to progressively offer 'Dost' pan India as well as feed the overseas markets. At the same time, plans are afoot to enhance its LCV portfolio with the introduction of variants both in the goods and passenger segments.

'Dost', which has a payload capacity of 1.25T, is available in three versions with the top-end version featuring air-conditioning, power steering and a palette of four colours to choose from: White, Beige, Blue and Aqua Green. Ashok Leyland also offers Ready-to-Use Vehicles (RUVs) on the 'Dost' platform for various applications such as Refrigerated containers, Steel containers, Ambulance, Aluminium Fixed Side Decks and Service-At-Site vehicles.

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