 "tata motors, passenger vehicles")
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) owner Tata Motors Ltd on Friday posted a 67.2% surge in profit for the December quarter, as the easing of coronavirus restrictions and the festive season helped the carmaker clock in better sales.
Indians typically make big-ticket purchases during the festive season, which was in mid-November, while carmakers are seeing a higher demand for cars as buyers turn to personal mobility in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Due to a strong festive season and a clear preference for personal mobility, the PV business posted its highest sales in last 33 quarters," Tata Motors Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Guenter Butschek said.
Consolidated net profit came in at 29.06 billion rupees ($398.52 million) for the third quarter, compared with a profit of 17.38 billion rupees a year earlier.
The luxury carmaker, however, reported a loss of 3.14 billion rupees in the previous quarter as the pandemic dented business in several of its key markets.
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Retail sales at luxury car unit JLR - which rakes in most of the company's revenue - were up 13.1% from a quarter ago, but still 9% lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Rival Maruti Suzuki India logged a 24 per cent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, but margins contracted due to rising costs.
While the festive season in India helped lift sales during the December quarter, auto companies now also face a global shortage of microprocessor chips and shipping containers.
Tata Motors last week said it would hike prices of its passenger vehicles to deal with a rise in raw material costs.
Total revenue from operations rose 5.5% to 756.54 billion rupees.
(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
