Tata Group aims at $500-bn revenue by 2021

The widely diversified Tata Group has targeted revenues of $500 billion (Rs25.4 lakh crore) by March 2021, a newspaper report said, as the conglomerate aims to increase sales five times over this period.

Eight months before he is due to retire, Ratan Tata, the chairman of the group which includes Tata Consultancy Services , Tata Steel, Tata Motors, as well as tea and salt businesses, unveiled the growth plan at a meeting with around 500 senior group executives in Mumbai last month, Business Standard said.

A spokesman for the group declined to comment on the report.

Chairman Tata will step down in December this year, and will be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, deputy chairman and a former member of the board of holding company Tata Sons. Mistry attended the meeting at the Taj Hotel, which was webcast live for senior executives in India and abroad who could not attend.

The 74-year-old Tata has led the conglomerate since 1991 and has embarked on a global shopping spree that has brought companies such as UK tea brand Tetley, European steelmaker Corus and luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover into the Tata stable.

Around two-thirds of its revenue is generated overseas. The group posted revenues of $83 billion in the financial year ending in March 2011, and is expected to see revenues of $100 billion in the year that ended last month, the newspaper said.

Tata told the executives that despite scepticism, his push to internationalise the group through acquisitions had been a key factor in its growth.

Without those acquisitions, the group would have reached a turnover of only $65 billion, he said.