Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MRTI.NS) beat quarterly profit estimates and reported improved margins on Tuesday as the country's biggest carmaker benefitted from strong demand for its passenger cars, helped by festive sales.
Profit for Maruti, which has over 40% market share in the country's passenger vehicles segment, more than doubled to 23.51 billion rupees ($288.5 million) in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from 10.11 billion rupees a year ago.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of 18.81 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
Shares of the company, which kickstarts quarterly earnings for automakers, rose as much as 3.2% in afternoon trade, having risen over 2% in the past week.
Maruti's results are seen as a key indicator of private consumption in the country, with the auto sector carrying more than 50% weightage in calculating the country's economic growth.
Maruti, majority owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T), said vehicle sales rose to 465,911 units in the quarter from 430,668 units a year ago.
Sales at its biggest segment - compact cars like Baleno - rose almost 17%, while sales of sport utility vehicles, which includes the Grand Vitara, rose almost 23%.
Carmakers, including Maruti, took a hit during the pandemic when demand dwindled and a shortage of chips further hit their ability to build vehicles.
A return to a normalcy and some easing of the chip shortage has helped the company, which said it had about 363,000 pending orders, of which about 119,000 were for newly launched models.
