Maruti Suzuki reports 2% rise in net profit

New Delhi: India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Thursday posted a two per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1,419.6 crore for the three months ended September, mainly driven by higher sales. The auto major had a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,391.1 crore in the July-September quarter of the previous fiscal. Total revenue from operations rose by 10.34 per cent to Rs 18,755.6 crore in the latest September quarter. In the year-ago period, the same stood at Rs 16,997.9 crore, MSI said in a statement. MSI Chairman RC Bhargava told reporters that the second quarter has been much better than the first quarter which had witnessed zero production for about two months.

"Similarly, as compared to the same quarter last fiscal, we have performed better," he noted. However, he also said "the company's performance has been better during the period under review on a low base of July-September period last year. The reason why the company has performed better is that last year itself was a year when MSI went down 16 per cent and the industry went down 18 per cent. This 16 per cent fall happened when normally we would have been growing by 10-12 per cent."

On a standalone basis, the company posted a net profit of Rs 1,371.6 crore in the latest September quarter compared to Rs 1,358.6 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal. Net sales stood at Rs 17,689.3 crore for the period under review, up 9.7 per cent from July-September period of 2019-20. The firm said it sold 3,93,130 units during the September quarter, a growth of 16.2 per cent over the year-ago period. This includes 3,70,619 units in the domestic market, a growth of 18.6 per cent compared to the same period a year ago. Exports during the quarter stood at 22,511 units, a decline of 12.7 per cent over the same period of the previous fiscal. Comparing the current market scenario with the situation a few years ago, he said that in the second quarter of 2018-19, the company sold 4.55 lakh units as compared with 3.7 lakh units in the second quarter of the current fiscal.