Tata Steel Q1 net sales down 17 percent

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Steel Ltd on Tuesday posted a 17 percent drop in consolidated net sales for the April-June quarter, as a flood of cheaper imports hit steel prices.

The company's net profit for the period ended June 30 more than doubled to 7.63 billion rupees ($118.82 million), on a consolidated basis, from 3.37 billion a year earlier.

The profit was helped by a one-time gain of 1.58 billion rupees compared with an charge of 2.62 billion rupees in the year-ago quarter.

Consolidated net sales for the quarter fell to 29.90 billion rupees.

($1 = 64.2150 rupees)

(Reporting by Aman Shah in Mumbai; Editing by Sunil Nair)