Mumbai, July 27: Tata Motors Ltd, India’s largest vehicle maker, reported a 58 percent rise in net profit, defying forecasts for a halving of profit as asset sales and lower costs for inputs such as steel countered weaker sales.
Tata Motors, which owns the luxury Jaguar and Land Rover brands and recently launched the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, reported a net profit of 5.14 billion rupees ($107 million) in the quarter to June, from 3.26 billion rupees a year earlier.
A Reuters poll of 14 brokerages had forecast net profit to fall 53.6 percent to 1.5 billion rupees.
Revenues fell 8 percent to 64.05 billion rupees from 69.28 billion.
In June, the company sold 11 million shares of group company Tata Steel to parent Tata Sons, for 4.57 billion rupees.
Shares in Tata Motors, worth $3.1 billion, rose 61.5 percent in the June quarter, outperforming rises of 49 percent in both the main index and the sector index.
—-Agencies