Tata Motors Ltd on Friday posted a 67.2% surge in profit for the December quarter, as the easing of coronavirus restrictions led to a pick-up in sales in several of the carmaker’s key markets.
Tata Motors, which owns Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), reported a consolidated net profit of ₹2,906 crore for the third quarter, compared with a profit of ₹1,738 crore a year earlier.
The luxury carmaker had reported a loss of ₹314 crore in the previous quarter as the Covid-19 pandemic hit business in several of its key markets.
“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.
“In the CV business the M&HCV and ILCV segments led the overall CV growth of over 48% higher domestic salescompared to the previous quarter. We improved our operational and financial performance by reducing costs, generating free cash flows. Despite the current global challenge of semiconductor supplies, we are confident of keeping our performance improvement on track in this quarter to close the year on a high for an even stronger play in FY22,” said Butschek.
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.
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 ₹75,654 crore from ₹71,676 crore a year ago.
