TVS Motor third-quarter profit rises about 16 percent, misses estimates

(Reuters) - TVS Motor Company Ltd reported about 16 percent rise in quarterly profit on Tuesday, helped by higher sales in the motorcycles segment.

Net profit for the third quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at 1.54 billion rupees ($24.15 million), compared with 1.33 billion rupees in the year-ago quarter. http://bit.ly/2nlkoOJ

Analysts on average estimated a net profit of 1.68 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Two-wheeler sales including exports increased 13.8 percent to 799,000 units with motorcycles sales rising to 314,000 units.

Shares of TVS Motor were down 1.8 percent at 0703 GMT.

($1 = 63.7600 Indian rupees)

(Reporting By Arnab Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)