M&M net profit beats forecasts, rises 1.7 percent

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd , India's biggest utility vehicle manufacturer, posted a forecast beating 1.7 percent rise in net profit for the three months ended March, helped by higher sales.

Mahindra, also the world's largest tractor company by sales volume, said profit for the fiscal fourth quarter was 8.89 billion rupees, against 8.74 billion rupees a year earlier.

Net sales increased 12 percent to 103.5 billion rupees.

Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 7.62 billion rupees on revenues of 99.86 billion rupees, according to data from Thomson Reuters Starmine.

Mahindra's passenger vehicle sales rose an annual 19 percent during the quarter, while domestic tractor sales fell 5 percent over the same period. (Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)