Domestic turnaround, JLR boost Tata Motors net profit 3-fold

A remarkable turnaround of its struggling domestic unit, and record high volumes and margin improvements at its marquee British business have boosted Tata Motors Group net profit by three-fold to Rs 5,177 crore in the three months to March from over Rs 1,717 crore a year ago.
Profit at its British unit Jaguar Land Rover, which has been its cash machine for many years now, soared 56.3 per cent to 472 million pounds from 302 million pounds a year ago, driven by record sales across its key markets of Europe, China and the US.
While JLR's retail sales in Europe soared 55 per cent in the quarter under review, its deliveries in China climbed 19 per cent, driven by the local production of the Land Rover Discovery Sport SUV and the ramp up of the Jaguar XE sedan. This helped JLR, for the first time, cross the half-a-million sales mark at 5,21571 units for the year.

The China JV turned in a net profit of 49 million pounds during the quarter, apart from some write-back from the provisions made for the losses from the fire at its godown last year, the company said.
The profit would have been higher had it not been for the Rs 1,580-crore charge the company has taken for the recall of 1 lakh unit of its XF model from the JLR stable in the US due to faulty airbags supplied by the Japanese supplier Takata and towards some doubtful investments it has done in the past, Group Chief Financial Officer C Ramakrishanan said here late in the evening.

He said the bottomline was also impacted to some extent by unfavourable forex movements. The bottomline gain was partly offset by higher depreciation and amortisation expenses, adverse revaluation of euro payables.

The city-based company's consolidated sales grew 18.76 per cent to Rs 79,926 crore during the reporting quarter.
What is more important is the remarkable turnaround of its domestic unit which has been struggling for the past many years. On a standalone basis, Tata Motors India reported a net profit of Rs 465 crore for the fourth quarter against a net loss of Rs 1,164.25 crore a year ago.
Standalone net sales stood at Rs 12,459.51 crore against Rs 10,676.19 crore, driven primarily by truck and bus business and partly by the demand for its new cars - the Bolt, Zest and the new Nano.

For the full year, the domestic unit posted a net profit of Rs 234.23 crore as against a whopping net loss of Rs 4,738.95 crore in 2014-15. Domestic net sales rose 16.87 per cent to Rs 41,948 crore from Rs 35,890.5 crore in FY15.
Though earnings were announced late in the evening, the Tata Motors counter closed up 4.2 per cent at Rs 420.55 on the BSE, whose benchmark Sensex inched up 0.3 per cent in a dull trade after four days of rally.